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AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

No Evidence of Shooting at D.C.'s Navy Yard; New Details of Prison Escape. Aired 11:00-11:30a ET.

Aired July 2, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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


[11:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We're still waiting for this press conference to happen in Washington, D.C., about exactly what transpired at the Navy yard, the warning called in this morning. Thanks so much for being with me today. I'm Poppy Harlow. "At This Hour with Berman and Bolduan" starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone. I'm John Berman.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kate Bolduan. Thanks for joining us. A huge sigh of relief this morning in the nation's capitol.

Authorities say there is no evidence of a shooting at D.C.'s Navy yard, and they've reopened streets in the area. For much of the morning the city was gripped with fear that a shooter was in the same building where a gunman went on a rampage you'll remember two years ago killing 12 people.

BERMAN: We are now waiting for a press conference from the mayor of Washington, D.C., also the police chief, and a military official to tell us exactly what went on, the exact time line of the events which really put that city and to a certain extent this nation on education on edge for a couple hours this morning. Official say someone called 911 to report a shooting, a facility the Navy yard went into a lockdown. A short time after that, employees were told to shelter in place.

Our justice reporter Evan Perez is at the scene at the Navy yard again where the mayor and police chief are set to speak any minute now.

Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. This all began just before 8:00 as employees were told to shelter in place. We're told that law enforcement responded to a call, a 911 call, of a man with a gun, and really the next few hours they spent just trying to clear these buildings. Employees were outside the Navy yard mustering, trying to make sure everybody was accounted for.

They have now declared that the scene is clear and we expect to hear from Vice Admiral Dixon Smith, the commander of Naval installations as well as D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser and Cathy Lanier the D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief. That's what we expect to happen in the next couple minutes. Really, it does reflects what's happening right now in Washington and around the country as counterterrorism officials, law enforcement officials say that they're worried about possible terrorist attacks timed to the July 4th holiday.

We see now some of the officials walking up right behind me here and we expect that they will be able to explain exactly what happened. There's all kinds of rumors everything from perhaps someone heard a construction noise to simply a hoax. So right now we expect to hear from the officials to clarify this.

BOLDUAN: All right, Evan. Let's take a listen.

MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER, WASHINGTON: Good morning. I'm Muriel Bowser, the mayor of the district of Columbia and I'm joined by Admiral Dixon Smith, Chief of Police, Cathy Lanier. And we are here to give you a report on this morning's incident at the Washington Navy yard.

We want to report that the police were called and asked for assistance by officials at the Navy yard. We understand that an employee at the Navy yard shortly after 7:29 reported that she may have heard gunshots in the facility. The police officials at the facility sent out the call to law enforcement in the area.

Our police responded, our police went into the facility with the assistance of our federal partners. At this time there is no evidence of gunshots. There is no evidence of a shooter, and there's no evidence of any victims today. We look forward to finding out that all of our partners responded as they should have. The chief of police will convene after action meeting shortly after the incident is cleared to see how everybody responded.

I'm very proud of all of the officials that answered the call. We know that there have been a lot of lessons learned from previous incident facility here at the Navy yard and we have found that there has been a clear coordinated and convincing response to this scene. We're grateful at this point that we have found no shooter, evidence of shooting, or any victims.

I want to turn it over now to the admiral so that the admiral can describe how navy officials responded and the current investigation in the center, and then we will hear from the chief of police - the metropolitan police department, Cathy Lanier.

[11:05:00] VICE ADMIRAL DIXON SMITH, COMMANDER OF NAVAL INSTALLATIONS: Thank you, Mayor. Our Vice Admiral Dixon Smith, commander, Navy installations command and first and foremost, I'd like to thank the mayor, D.C. metro, all of our first responders from the federal and metro area. Their response was outstanding This morning and very much appreciated. As the mayor said, we received a report of an active shooter at 0729. We responded to that and called in assistance from Metro

D.C. as the mayor stated, there has been no signs of a shooter, no shootings, and no injuries. Navy yard remains in lockdown and building 197, we're finishing

up the final walk through right now checking and opening up all of our security spaces. We expect that to be done within 20 minutes. Assuming we find nothing, then we will open up the Navy yard again. For the folks that were evacuated out of 197, the Humphries building, based upon their location of the building they either went outside of the Navy yard or they went over to the conference center and based upon the events of a couple years ago, we have counselors and our chaplains are with them now providing the support that they may need for desire.

Again, in closing, I'd like to thank the mayor and the police chief and all the first responders for your quick response this morning. We've learned a lot over the last couple years. We've exercised hard. We're going to review this again to see what went right and what we can continue to improve upon to improve our procedures in the future. Thank you very much.

Chief?

CHIEF CATHY LANIER, DC METROPOLITAN POLICE: Just to give you a quick run down from what we know right now. First, a call was placed from inside of the building Nav Sea command this morning around 7:29. It went to the internal call center inside of the Navy yard. That call once received for a possible sound of gunshots was then immediately taken by the Naval district of Washington police and broadcast over metropolitan police department's citywide channel as a request for the metropolitan police and other law enforcement partners to assist with a potential active shooter.

Nav sea command at the Washington Navy yard. Metropolitan police department along with United States Park Police, Metro Transit Police, NCIS, United States Marshals, ATF, and others, capitol police, all responded to that request for law enforcement assistance. Many of the things we talked about in our after action of the Washington Navy yard respond a couple years ago went very, very smoothly.

So officers were able to access the gates and get in. We were having radio communications both in my command center and in the field immediately from Naval circuit of Washington police officers inside Nav sea command building within 20 minutes of the first call. I was sitting in unified command with Admiral Halardies, police chiefs and representatives from the FBI, NCIS and other federal law enforcement agencies.

In just about the same amount of time metropolitan police department officers and FBI were able to get into and take control of the command booth and access everything we needed in terms of cameras and stuff inside of the building. So having spent a lot of time doing the after action from the first incident in the Navy yard, it appears that that all the things that we tried to correct and make go better from the last incident went very, very well.

A very smoothly, well-coordinated response here, and very happy that there is - this turns out to be a great exercise for us to see we fixed what we wanted to fix and nobody is hurt and no evidence of any shots fired. So at this point we'll take any questions that you have that we can answer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).

LANIER: The, the question is how do we feel this impacts the increased threat for the independence day? Obviously right now all evidence is that there was no criminal act here, there was no shots fired, no one was hurt, and we don't believe that it was malicious hoax or incident like that. So I don't think it has any relative play on that threat level. We take every event here in Washington very serious and our posture remains extremely high for all special events and it will continue for the fourth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me clarify, so looking back, I meant by my question chief...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it possible someone heard construction noise?

LANIER: Obviously anything is possible. And you know, I think that we tell people over and over again, see something, say something. You don't know what's going on, don't take things for granted. You don't make that call. So regardless of what it is, an employee thought they heard something of concern. They made a call. That's what we tell people to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Part of a surveillance tape that showed two men climbing a fence just minutes before reports of gunshots? Are you investigating that? Is there this surveillance video.

LANIER: I am aware of that we have pulled all video. We have no concerns about it right now.

[11:10:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Admiral, can you talk about the active shooter drill, what you practice on a routine basis and how it worked this time?

SMITH: Sure. We - all of our commands practice active shooter drills. So we simulate there' an active shooter drill in the building and we train with our employees on how to respond. The first thing is to get out. If you can't, you barricade yourself and if you have to, you fight. We go to that and we exercise that and we do that and we do that in a routine basis so our employees know what to do. There's no doubt in my mind that, that made a difference this morning in the actions the employees did in the Humphries building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what tells can you tell us about the person who called in the report about shots fired and is there any concern that they did it on purpose? Is there any possibility that they have a connection to a terror group?

LANIER: We, we have interviewed the person. We have no concerns whatsoever. Again I think, this is an employee that did exactly what we ask employees to do and the general public to do. If you have a concern, something is not right, please all the police and let us figure it out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said MPD units went in first.

LANIER: Naval district of Washington police were inside the building when they made the call to us.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chief, where was she when she heard those sounds . . .

LANIER: All I can tell you is she was in an office inside of command's building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, clarify my earlier question. Looking back at the size of the response, how many people, how quick, was any of that colored by the announcement of increased concern about terrorism on independence day?

LANIER: I think the response we saw today is exactly like the response that we saw here when we had the active shooter here in the last incident is that we take every call seriously, and when we heard a call go out for a potential active shooter, we brought the resources that need to be here, and I think it has nothing to do with the increased threat level. That's what we do every day here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, can you speak to the larger question about the July 4th weekend and your concerns about security threats in the nation's capitol?

LANIER: So, again, I think we operate here in Washington, D.C., that there's an elevated threat level at all times. We never lower our threat level in terms of our posture and we're aware of what's the discussion and chatter is around the fourth of July events and all those threats and we take those into account. We change our tactics up for different events but we never lower our posture. We always made a very high posture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you deploying more people?

LANIER: We have a full deployment for every fourth of July.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would you say to people coming to D.C. that are worried, on edge coming to the fourth of July, events like this and previous events as well. What do you tell the people that are on edge?

LANIER: Well, I think it shows you have a city that have very well prepared, you have a city with a lot of local, federal law enforcement assets that are very well coordinated. We work together every day. It's not only what you see, it's what you don't see. We do that behind the scenes as well. So I think people should feel very comfortable this type of response does happen and fortunately happens when there is no loss of life or real incident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible)

LANIER: Hold on. Let me get somebody else in. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, why are you convinced this wasn't a

hoax, just a misunderstanding?

LANIER: As we've spoken to the person who made the call. The person who made the call heard what she thought may have been gunshots and she made a call which is what employees here are trained to do. We have no concerns that this was a hoax whatsoever.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just the one call, that was it?

LANIER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After the initial response (inaudible).

LANIER: So what often happens with response of this nature is there's a lot of police activity going on in the neighborhood and people's sense of alertness is heightened. And when they see different things going on, they will call. Which is again, we ask people to call. So we started getting additional calls about people on roofs and a lot of what we were getting was people calling in what they saw as police response.

Most of the officers that responded here today were in uniform. Some were not. Those officers that were not in uniform we did get additional calls about persons showing up that may be suspicious and they turned out to be law enforcement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was that person who made the call clear on (inaudible).

LANIER: So the question is was the person who made the 911 call today a person who was here during the original Navy yard incident. I don't want to answer that question. Out of respect for the privacy of the persons that work here, I'd rather not answer that.

BERMAN: We've been listening to the Washington, D.C., officials explain what happened this morning at the Washington, D.C. Naval yard. A huge law enforcement response. It started at 7:29 A.M. when an employee, a female employee at the Navy yard thought she heard gunshots. That caused the Navy yard to call 911 in that massive response of Washington, D.C., police, FBI, Federal Marshals, Naval, NCIS and I'm leaving some out. Huge law enforcement response but no evidence of any shot fired, no evidence of any active shooter on the scene.

[11:15:00] BOLDUAN: And importantly from the police chief, we heard she does not believe this was malicious Or a hoax or any kind of a test run that some folks had been thinking about. She didn't think that was the case at all. Let's discuss this, the response, especially in light of the heightened security threat around the country we've been hearing ahead of the July 4th holiday. Let's bring in Phillip Mudd and former counter terrorism official and of course CNN Analyst and former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam.

Jonathan, you were sitting here with us as we were watching this press conference. You also watched as the video was coming in, a huge response. You saw the video of the cars just lining that main street in Southeast D.C. Then you also hear they don't believe this was a hoax. They don't believe this was malicious. They think it was a good exercise. What do make it all?

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Sure.

BOLDUAN: What do you make of it all?

GILLIAM: Well, I do believe it was a good exercise. And I think the public should take notice of this and realize if you call 911, and this response happens, you're OK. You're not going to get blamed for anything. That's what the authorities exist to do is to respond. There's going to be circumstances where nothing happens, but there may be that circumstance where, you know, like in the Boston bombing which I talked about this morning, somebody placed a bag there, people saw it and did nothing, and there are people that said we didn't do anything. We didn't think anything about it and they lost their legs because of that.

BERMAN: No it sounds right but people say if you see something, say something. This is a case of a woman who thought she heard something and that's what led to this. We saw a huge response. Phil, I want to bring you in right here. Because the Washington, D.C., police chief said this response, the scope of this response, had nothing to do with this heightened state of concern and alert that the country is under right now heading into the fourth of July weekend. We know there is an unusual level of concern right now heading into this time. Do you think there's any connection?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I don't think there is. I'd say a couple things to add to your question about the response and how to think about it. First, I think the public is on more edge than my friends back in the bureau and CIA. We've been talking about this for a week or more. I think the call was appropriate, the response was appropriate.

As a D.C. resident, I remember all the conversation about the last incident at the Naval facility. I'm sure people who responded said we will make sure this time we do it properly, but I can say having gone through threat periods for 15 years after 9/11, if you're sitting behind the curtain at the bureau or CIA, you're on edge, but you practice this stuff all the time. This is what you do for a living. So I think it's the public that in some ways is more nervous than people who are sitting in my old chair at the bureau or the CIA.

BOLDUAN: Let me ask you, Phil. That reminds me Congressman Peter King, he's on homeland security and the intelligence committees, obviously in the House, he said to Wolf just yesterday that this is the most concerned he's seen the FBI, DHS, and local law enforcement since 9/11. That sounds really scary. Is he, is he overreacting?

MUDD: Yes. That sounds scary. It's also incorrect. I saw threat streams going back, for example, to the air plot in the U.K. in 2006, to a plot against the New York subway in must have been about 2009 that I thought were more significant than what you see today. What you see government officials talking about and why I think Congressman King is reacting is we used to face an Al Qaeda organization and we worried that we'd miss a cell, two or three people who had been sent from Pakistan.

Now when you're sitting in the threat seat, you don't worry you're missing a cell. You're worried you're missing one of these people in a city like New York or Chicago or Washington who isn't connected to anything but has a weapon. That's why this is so hard to track, but I think he's overreacting.

BERMAN: Now, John Miller in the police department in New York City said that heading into this weekend, this city has never had as complicated and multilayered a precautionary stance. They're doing more this weekend than they have ever done before. So Jonathan, let me ask you they wouldn't be doing that just cause. They're doing that because they want to be careful, they must have a reason.

GILLIAM: Well, sure they have a reason, especially after this past weekend where you had three different attacks in three different continents all hitting places where people drop their guard and congress congregate. So that plus the fact we've had some recent arrests here in New York, it just adds to the overall awareness and heightened threat level but I agree with Phillip Mudd, we were talking about this earlier this week. It's going to be very important for people to remember critical areas, the times when the areas are critical and the avenues of approach an attacker can come from so people can learn to avoid those things and not be afraid to react, not be afraid to call 911 or the authorities, but remember whenever there's large crowds, work, church, fourth of July, you need to be aware. That's where a shooter can come in and do the most damage and that's what they're going to be drawn to.

[11:20:00] BOLDUAN: That's scary balance of living your life and enjoying the holiday and this heightened threat we exist in right now. Jonathan.

GILLIAM: One last thing, I'll say, when you go to sleep every night, you make sure your doors are locked, your windows are secured and your kids are in bed. You're not doing that because you're making your home secure. Live your life the same way. Don't be hyper paranoid. Just be very aware and make sure you're secure and well thought out.

BOLDUAN: Jonathan, thank you so much. Phil it's always good to see you. Thank you so much. I'm sure we'll be talking to you a lot more this week. Coming up for us, Richard Matt, he was too drunk and out of shape. That is coming from the inmate he went on the run with and now David Sweat is opening up about that plot to also kill Joyce Mitchell's husband. Much more on this.

BERMAN: Plus, a deadly mistake. Some of the most dramatic video we have seen in a long, long time. We now know what the pilot did and perhaps did wrong in the final moments of this plane crash caught on video.

And Donald Trump not doubles down but triples down on his remarks about Mexico. He keeps on talking about a specific article. I think that's what he's holding in his hands right now, but you know what? We have the person who wrote that article and we're going to ask is Donald Trump right about what he's reading right now? Stay with us.

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BOLDUAN: New this morning, captured inmate David Sweat is offering investigators more and more details about their brazen prison break, all of this coming while he's in his hospital bed. The real question, of course, is how much of it is true? Sweat now says it wasn't his plan to kill the husband of the prison tailor, Joyce Mitchell, but her idea.

[11:25:00] BERMAN: Yes. He also told investigators he had to part ways with fellow escapee Richard Matt because Matt was too out of shape and his heavy drinking was slowing them down. Jean Casarez joins us from outside the prison in Dannemora, New York. Good morning, Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. While all of this is happening we confirmed that Richard Matt's body was believed was going to be possessed by the county and going to be a county burial but at the last minute the coroner in Franklin county told me his family stepped in and the family claimed the body. So this morning that body has been in transport to Buffalo, New York.

Now, this while investigators are trying to determine if David Sweat was telling the truth with all of these details he was giving them. And some things I think, you know, you really don't know, but there are definitely some inconsistencies here between he and Joyce Mitchell. First of all, Joyce Mitchell said that they were going to Mexico. Well, David Sweat said, yes, we were bound for Mexico but we were going to go to West Virginia first and another inconsistency as you said is Lyle Mitchell, the husband of Joyce.

David Sweat saying that it was Joyce's idea to have her husband killed. Joyce saying no, it's not, and her attorney is speaking out saying definitely not. It was the escapees' plan and idea to kill Lyle, but one thing that David Sweat is saying is that in one of the tunnels in the prison right behind me they found a sledgehammer. We would always heard it was a toolbox that was found and one of the big changes in the tunnel is that you no longer can have toolboxes there. And there's going to be electronic gates in the tunnel and they're also going to start to take pictures every month of the tunnel areas to compare and contrast to see if there are any new security risks so no one else will be able to escape.

BERMAN: Seems to be a good idea to keep a better eye on the tunnels underneath that prison going forward. Jean Casarez for us in Dannemora. Thanks so much.

Here's a new jobs numbers to report this morning, big jobs number. The unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent that's a seven-year low.

BOLDUAN: So what does this really mean for the health of the economy? What really is going on here? Let's go to CNN's Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans. So Christine lay it out.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about a jobless rate that's the lowest since before the crisis and that's what's really important here, since before the crisis, 5.3 percent. So you've got an unemployment rate that's been steadily improving. Let's talk about jobs added here. Here is the trend and you have 223,000 jobs added. There were some economists who thought we would see more than that, but 223,000 jobs, another reading above 200,000. That's showing steady, consistent jobs growth. Where are the jobs coming? They're coming at the office. Temp workers are in here, also architects, computer systems designers.

You're seeing all kinds of office jobs, those tend to pay more. In health care at hospitals, assisted living centers, ambulatory care center. Health care a big driver of economic growth and in retail where some of these folks are getting paid a dollar more an hour this year than they were last year. You're seeing some retail job creation as well. It's good for the market. The market liked it earlier. Now there's some concern about maybe this means you will see the fed raising interest rates later this year.

My advice to anyone who wants to know what these job numbers mean for them, it's getting better to get a job out there and, and it's time to refinance your mortgage if you need to because interest rates are going to rise. The fed will be able to raise interest rates if you keep seeing numbers like this into the fall.

BOLDUAN: An important moment. Christine, thank you.

Coming up for us, Donald Trump standing his ground. As another company cuts ties and drops his brand, but there's also some good news for Mr. Trump and the Miss USA pageant that he partially owns. Details on that ahead.

BERMAN: And then pilot error. We have new details about what happened here. Remember this just stunning video. It appears to be a deadly mistake by the pilot moments before this plane crashed.

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