Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / Suspect in Berlin Pride attack killed by police after manhunt, official says

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Suspect in Berlin Pride attack killed by police after manhunt, official says · INSIGHT TODAY

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  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, I'm Drika Duncan. We are following breaking news
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  Speaker 1: from overseas. In Germany, the suspects sought in connection with
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  Speaker 1: that deadly Berlin Pride car ramming attack was shot and
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  Speaker 1: killed by police. A senior police official in Germany told
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  Speaker 1: CBS News the suspect charged towards police with a knife
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  Speaker 1: and police opened fire. Germany's Interior minister identified the suspect
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  Speaker 1: as twenty one year old Abdul Balaut, a German citizen
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  Speaker 1: with Lebanese roots. Authorities believe he may have been motivated
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  Speaker 1: by Islamist extremist ideology. German Chancellor Frederick Murz spoke earlier
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  Speaker 1: today and urged Germans to protect liberal values and said
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  Speaker 1: there will be consequences. Diteta so Sklich. Speaking in German,
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  Speaker 1: he said, we will do everything in our power to
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  Speaker 1: apprehend the perpetrator or perpetrators as quickly as possible. We
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  Speaker 1: will consider the consequences and make our decision with prudence
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  Speaker 1: but also with determination. These criminals, these extremists, he says,
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  Speaker 1: have no place at the heart of our society, said Mertz.
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  Speaker 1: Now joining me with more on that. As Anna Schechter,
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  Speaker 1: she covers crime for CBS news and what more do
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  Speaker 1: we know so far? Obviously one person killed, over two
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  Speaker 1: dozen others injured. This could have been a lot worse.
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  Speaker 2: It could have been a lot worse.
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  Speaker 3: The suspect, Abdul Balaut rammed his vehicle he had rented
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  Speaker 3: that vehicle, rammed it into the crowd during that Pride parade.
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  Speaker 3: He was also wielding a knife. Now then what ensued
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  Speaker 3: was a man hunt. He was on the run for hours.
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  Speaker 3: Finally police located him and I spoke to a Berlin
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  Speaker 3: police official earlier today who described how he essentially was
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  Speaker 3: charging towards police. He was wielding a knife. They opened
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  Speaker 3: fired shot and killed him. So it's been a very
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  Speaker 3: eventful twenty four hours in Germany. There just very high
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  Speaker 3: tension around this issue. Germany has struggled with terrorism and
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  Speaker 3: extremism over the last twenty years. In fact, back in
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  Speaker 3: twenty ten, I covered al Qaeda allegiance that was growing
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  Speaker 3: in communities in Berlin but in other cities around Germany.
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  Speaker 3: So this feels like we're kind of returning to the past.
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  Speaker 3: It's also not the first time we've had a vehicle
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  Speaker 3: ramming in the regent, so obviously our hearts are with
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  Speaker 3: the twenty nine injured and the family of the woman
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  Speaker 3: who was killed.
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  Speaker 1: We see the police presence there on video in the
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  Speaker 1: car obviously the police using massive efforts to capture this
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  Speaker 1: person and in the end he was killed. Twenty one
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  Speaker 1: years old, German citizen Lebanese roots. What is it right
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  Speaker 1: now that you know they are connecting him to Islamis
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  Speaker 1: extremists and are they concerned about a copycat incident at
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  Speaker 1: this hour?
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  Speaker 3: Great question, So police, we're interacting with him all the
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  Speaker 3: way Back in twenty nineteen, when he was thirteen fourteen
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  Speaker 3: years old, he was convicted of assaulting another student in
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  Speaker 3: a school yard in Berlin. Fast forward, he started to
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  Speaker 3: get seduced by ISIS and extremist ideology. In twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 3: he was posting ISIS propaganda on social media. Police didn't
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  Speaker 3: find out until a subsequent investigation because he was actually
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  Speaker 3: trying to join ISIS.
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  Speaker 2: He was arrested in Lebanon, extradited.
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  Speaker 3: Back to Germany because he's a German citizen, was convicted
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  Speaker 3: and served about a year and ten months, and so
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  Speaker 3: was out. Another detail. In May of this year, police
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  Speaker 3: went to his house. They were investigating illegal possession of weapons.
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  Speaker 3: They only found a toy gun, and so that investigation
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  Speaker 3: was dropped. So he was well known to law enforcement.
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  Speaker 1: Is this sort of a wake up call because of
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  Speaker 1: not just where we are globally and being able to
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  Speaker 1: connect with people, but this idea that somebody can continue
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  Speaker 1: to look at certain material and be radicalized if you will,
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  Speaker 1: not only happening you know, across the globe. But that's
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  Speaker 1: something that FBI talks about all the time here in
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  Speaker 1: this country.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, it is a top concern, and it's because any
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  Speaker 3: lunge wolf, this is a German citizen who grows up
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  Speaker 3: in Germany. Sure he has family in Lebanon and they
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  Speaker 3: may be going back and forth, but there are hundreds
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  Speaker 3: of thousands of people just like that in Germany. What's
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  Speaker 3: different about this individual is that he had a tendency
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  Speaker 3: towards violence. Obviously when we look back at that conviction,
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  Speaker 3: that assault conviction, and then that type of character tends
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  Speaker 3: to get more radicalized by extremist ideology that they find online.
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  Speaker 3: So how do you eradicate that from online spaces. It's
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  Speaker 3: really impossible. It's like a game of whack a mole.
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  Speaker 3: So even though law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies work together
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  Speaker 3: the Americans, the Germans, the British to try to eradicate
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  Speaker 3: that tamp down on extremist propaganda, and they successfully did that.
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  Speaker 3: They worked with tech companies. Facebook did a lot. Isis
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  Speaker 3: propaganda was all over Facebook back in twenty fifteen. It's
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  Speaker 3: harder to find now, but it's still there. Unfortunately.
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  Speaker 1: How important is it to work with other leaders within
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  Speaker 1: the Islamic faith that are not extremists because it constantly
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  Speaker 1: gets attached to this group of people and everybody is
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  Speaker 1: not Abdullah Balat, who is now the person who suspected
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  Speaker 1: of having drove his car killed a person and injured
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  Speaker 1: twenty nine others.
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  Speaker 3: That is a wonderful point Toarika. I think it's so
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  Speaker 3: important that you made that. It is important for interfaith leaders,
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  Speaker 3: including leaders of the Muslim community, to come together and
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  Speaker 3: try to.
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  Speaker 2: Move forward and try.
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  Speaker 3: To inspire people towards working together and living together peacefully
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  Speaker 3: and building community alliances instead of kind of letting people
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  Speaker 3: fall through the cracks and move towards violence.
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  Speaker 1: There will be a heavier police presence at the next
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  Speaker 1: big event, and this typically happens after something like this.
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  Speaker 1: But what else is being done to find these sort
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  Speaker 1: of I don't even want to say isolated, because I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, you know, as far as Berlin, how many
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  Speaker 1: other cases they've been tracking down, or sometimes they don't
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  Speaker 1: tell the public. What they're looking into are things that
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  Speaker 1: they've been able to avert.
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  Speaker 2: But what else can be done.
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  Speaker 1: To avoid a situation like what we saw happened last night.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, on some level, the investigative bodies in
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  Speaker 3: Germany were all over this guy. In fact, they just
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  Speaker 3: visited his home in May. They were aware, they were
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  Speaker 3: trying to monitor them, and you can see when you
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  Speaker 3: read the details from prosecutors they were trying to balance
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  Speaker 3: personal liberty with security, and in this case, I think
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  Speaker 3: they were hopeful that this guy was going to reform
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  Speaker 3: and the services that they provided, we're going to help
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  Speaker 3: him get out of this extremist ideology.
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  Speaker 2: And they were still watching.
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  Speaker 3: They were being careful, but there were laws in Germany
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  Speaker 3: like here in the US. You have to have probable cause.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, they clearly had a warrant to at least
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  Speaker 3: or authorization to at least go and visit him and
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  Speaker 3: search his home. And they didn't find anything. So this
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  Speaker 3: is really tricky, And I know when I talked to
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  Speaker 3: law enforcement here.
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  Speaker 2: In the US. It's just these ones.
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  Speaker 3: That slipped through the cracks where they were even onto him,
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  Speaker 3: you know, visiting his house and then didn't couldn't pin
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  Speaker 3: down a case and then something like and then he
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  Speaker 3: goes and carries out this horrific attack that's deadly and
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  Speaker 3: names and wounds two dozen other people.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think in the coming days we will learn
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  Speaker 1: more information about what he may have been planning in
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  Speaker 1: the weeks prior to this, because if they went to
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  Speaker 1: us home in May, you know, you would think, is
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  Speaker 1: there someone that's supposed to sort of be watching his
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  Speaker 1: home or his whereabouts, monitoring him in some way?
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  Speaker 2: And was that happening? Perhaps the big we don't know.
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  Speaker 3: The big question I think is was he working with
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  Speaker 3: anyone else?
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  Speaker 2: Was he finding community?
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  Speaker 3: And one of the German leaders at a press conference
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  Speaker 3: earlier today mentioned this kind of subculture that they want
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  Speaker 3: to connect with and try to help people get out
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  Speaker 3: of this, and so that to me raised a big question.
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  Speaker 3: Who else is in that group with him? Who else
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  Speaker 3: is consuming this? Isis propaganda with this young man? I
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  Speaker 3: mean twenty one years old, you know, he's a young
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  Speaker 3: guys will see what the investigation finds.
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  Speaker 2: But I think it stands to reason that he.
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  Speaker 3: Might have been communicating with somebody else online and police
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  Speaker 3: want to know about that because they're worried about the
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  Speaker 3: next tech you mentioned earlier, concerned.
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  Speaker 2: About a copycat.
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  Speaker 3: That's one hundred percent always on the minds of law enforcement.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, all throughout Germany and probably regionally, you're going
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  Speaker 3: to see beefed up security at all houses of worship,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, high profile potential targets will have a
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  Speaker 3: physical security presence.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously, you have people mourning the death of the one
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  Speaker 1: woman and those who have been injured. What does this
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  Speaker 1: say to the LGBTQ community.
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  Speaker 3: It's just it's just heartbreaking that this was supposed to
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  Speaker 3: be a day of pride, of celebration about all of
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  Speaker 3: the liberties that people do have in a country like Germany,
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  Speaker 3: and to have this wonderful day destroyed in this horrific,
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  Speaker 3: violent manner.
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  Speaker 2: Now, what authorities.
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  Speaker 3: And officials did say at these press conferences is we
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  Speaker 3: need to stand up for these liberal values.
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  Speaker 2: Don't be cowed, don't be don't be made to be afraid.
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  Speaker 3: So it's you know, it's not the first time we've
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  Speaker 3: seen Christmas Market car Rammings. I think the lgbt lgbt
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  Speaker 3: Q plus Pride parade that was going on was a
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  Speaker 3: very specific community and so to see that targeted rep
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  Speaker 3: that is that really hits home in a liberal democracy.
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  Speaker 2: It's it's just devastating.
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  Speaker 1: Going back to the manhunt, we had some images of
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  Speaker 1: that up earlier. Can you just speak to those who
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  Speaker 1: might be just joining, how intensive, how extensive rather this
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  Speaker 1: manhunt was. We're talking all of this happening in a
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  Speaker 1: matter of twenty four hours.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, And the police were begging the public. They
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  Speaker 3: put out his photo, a description of him, slim build,
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  Speaker 3: black hair, his height. If you have seen this young man,
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  Speaker 3: or if you witnessed anything related to this crime, please
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  Speaker 3: come forward. Because police knew that the rental car was
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  Speaker 3: connected to Abdul ball Out, but they did not even
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  Speaker 3: know for sure if he was actually the one driving
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  Speaker 3: the car because the attacker had fled, so it took
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  Speaker 3: them a while.
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  Speaker 2: They were a lot of unknowns.
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  Speaker 3: In the early hours and even up until earlier this
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  Speaker 3: morning in Germany, police were still putting out that PSA,
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  Speaker 3: if you've seen anything, please here's the tip line.
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  Speaker 2: We need your help to find this guy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Anna Schechter, Thank you so much for all that
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  Speaker 1: you've had to say in terms of putting that into
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  Speaker 1: context for us.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to.
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  Speaker 1: Take a quick break and have an update on the
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  Speaker 1: latest again shooting of a man who was accused of
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  Speaker 1: taking his car and plowing down several people, killing at
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  Speaker 1: least one person. Keep it here with CBS News.