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Investigating Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Twitter; Interview with Boston Cabbie Jim Duggan; Fire in Russian Psychiatric Hospital
Aired April 26, 2013 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: You invite all the agencies in the territory to come participate at every level, even including the coast guard, to come on and have a member assigned in the JTTF full-time where they'll be able to hear and see everything that goes on, know everybody that's come under investigation, know what the results were, and then decide, according to their specific rules, what to do with the eventual results of the investigation.
So I don't know the validity.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: But how does that actually work, Tom? How does that actually work? Does the city representative on the JTTF -- would they be alerted that one arm of the JTTF or that the FBI met with Tamerlan Tsarnaev in this case? Or would it just be available on a database if they were to look for it? Or would ...
FUENTES: No, that's ...
COOPER: ... somebody walk down the hall and knock on the door and say, oh, by the way, here's a heads up. We've interviewed a guy in your city.
FUENTES: Normally they're sitting side by side and they discuss it and then they have meetings, normally morning and afternoon meetings, to discuss here's who we've looked at today, here's what we've got, here's the results of that.
And everybody that's a participant in the JTTF would be privy to the actual information about the investigation at the time of it.
Every member of the JTTF goes through a clearance process by the FBI so they're cleared top secret so they can actually see the internal communications of the FBI and the other agencies.
There's no restriction on them because they're cleared top secret or above, so they see everything. They discuss everything. It's all right there.
So, to me, I don't know how they would miss it, including passport- control people and State Department people as far as the visa process or no-fly list or other things.
Representatives of each of those components of the government are sitting side by side. I don't know how much closer you can get than that. COOPER: All right. Clearly more information needs to be found on this. That report out of "The Boston Globe" today.
Tom Fuentes, appreciate your perspective and your experience. Thank you.
FUENTES: You're welcome.
COOPER: Still ahead, some tweets Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sent last year, including one saying, "I will die young."
We're going to examine some of his other comments on Twitter, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. You're looking at live pictures on Boylston Street.
Investigators are analyzing two and a half years of tweets sent from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Twitter account. Messages are being looked at for what they say what they might suggest.
Deborah Feyerick has our look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The picture that emerges is of a young man proud of his Chechen roots eager to visit what he calls his homeland, a country he'd left as a child.
Quote, "A decade in America, already I want out," he tweets in March 2012.
The 19-year-old college student was planning to return to Dagestan last summer, arriving just as older brother Tamerlan was returning from a six-month stay there, but his plans fell through.
Quote, "My passports not going to come in time," he writes.
He complains that his mother is trying to arrange a marriage for him.
Quote, "She needs to chill out. I'll find my own honey," he tweets.
His trip canceled, Tsarnaev instead takes a train to Washington, D.C. via New York, complaining about a noisy child and noting, "New York looks ill from afar, but zoom in and it gets real dirty."
Messages and a photo from the time showed Tsarnaev visited New York again with friends around Thanksgiving.
Quote, "New York is so ratchet on Black Friday it's ridiculous. I'm to bed soon."
Religion seems to have been of growing importance over the last year. Tsarnaev seems amused people mistakenly think he's converted. Quote, "Brothers at the mosque either think I'm a convert or that I'm from Algeria or Syria."
On another occasion, he shares, "Spent the day with this Jamaican Muslim convert. My religion is truth."
Other tweets are of special interest to investigator. A full year before the bombing he writes in native Russian, quote, "I will die young," unquote.
Several months later in August, he writes, "Boston marathon isn't good place to smoke."
And in January of this year, quote, "I got those brothers that I'd take a bullet for, in the leg or the shoulder or something, nothing fatal though."
Finally, a week before the attack, quote, "If you have the knowledge and the inspiration, all that's left is to take action."
Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, Boston cab driver Jim Duggan says he encountered the Tsarnaev brothers the day before the bombings. He said they rode in his cab.
Duggan says polite conversation turned tense when he brought up the Boston marathon. Jake Tapper reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM DUGGAN, BOSTON CAB DRIVER: I was here at the train station. It was a Sunday, and it was kind of a slow day.
JAKE TAPPER, ANCHOR, "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER": Two Sundays ago?
DUGGAN: The Sunday before the marathon. It was probably between 10:00 and 11:30. I was the only cab here.
In fact, I was going to pull away and get a cup of coffee when I saw two guys in my mirror. So I got out and they said, can you take us to Cambridge?
So I said no problem. I opened the trunk. They had two backpacks. I reached out to help them and they wanted to put it in themselves.
TAPPER: Did they seem heavy?
DUGGAN: I didn't touch them at that point.
TAPPER: The way they were carrying them though?
DUGGAN: Not really sure, but they put it in the trunk themselves. They were adamant about me not picking them up. One of the first questions I asked them, honestly, is if they were from Saudi Arabia. And they said, no, we're from Chechnya.
TAPPER: What other memories are coming back?
DUGGAN: You know, we talked about a lot of different things. When we got to the Kendall Square area, close to where I was going to drop them off, I said, hey, guys, by the way, I don't know if you ever heard of the Boston marathon because it's tomorrow, right?
It's like right over the bridge. If you've never seen it, it might be a good experience, right? Something for you to see.
And the little brother said, oh, Boston marathon? And then the older brother got real aggressive.
Little brother said to me at the time, nothing to worry about. It's between me and my brother. Just pull over here and let us out.
They get out. They paid me. And honestly I put the car in drive and went to drive away and I hear them screaming and they bang on the trunk and I'm like, oh, I forgot.
TAPPER: Stuff in the trunk.
DUGGAN: Right. So I get out and they were angry.
And I was like, man, you know what, I'm sorry. I forgot. Innocent mistake. People make mistakes.
So I popped the trunk. The little brother grabs his bag. And then I remember reaching in and grabbing another bag.
TAPPER: Was it heavy? The bag was heavy?
DUGGAN: Oh, it was heavy. You would assume like a purse or something, right? You assume what something should weigh.
TAPPER: It was heavier than you thought?
DUGGAN: It was heavier than it should have been.
TAPPER: The FBI released photographs of the suspects a week ago at about 5:15 p.m.
When did you realize, oh, my God, I think he was in my cab?
DUGGAN: The news first come out and they had the picture of the kid with the white hat. I remember distinctly that kid with the white cap and curly hair coming out.
TAPPER: Was he wearing it backwards?
DUGGAN: No, forwards just like mine.
TAPPER: Was the other wearing the black cap? DUGGAN: He was wearing that other cap, too. I told my mother, those kids were in my cab.
TAPPER: When did you call Homeland Security? When did ...
DUGGAN: I called the FBI either Friday or Saturday night, I think.
At that time I told them, you know what, my memory isn't super clear, but this is what I remember.
And they told me that over time, right, certain triggers may come to you and you'll remember more. And I did.
TAPPER: You were face to face with evil.
DUGGAN: The thought that I had that kind of evil in my car, I don't know, 28, 30 hours, the thought that I actually picked up what could have been that bag is terrifying.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, coming up tonight on CNN, we're going to follow the trail of terror from the Boston suburbs to the war-torn Caucasus. What may have influenced these two suspected bombers?
We're going to try to piece together all the information that we know in one report, a special report, "Boston Terror - Behind the Bombings." It's tonight at 10:00 Eastern.
And I'll be here on "360" at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. This is special coverage of the Boston bombings, but I do want to take a few minutes to tell you about other stories making news today.
This is Russia, not far from Moscow. A fire broke out at this psychiatric hospital overnight. Forty-one people were inside the building. Thirty-eight of them have died. The fire is out now. Russia's official news agency's reporting the fire may have started after an electrical short.
The government reports that the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter of this year. That is an improvement.
If you recall the economy just about stalled in the fourth quarter last year, growing an anemic four-tenths of a percent. That's the GDP, or gross domestic product, reading the values of the goods and the services that the country produces.
Some Boston businesses could lose out on insurance payments if the bombings are officially declared an act of terror.
Now since the 9/11 attacks businesses have typically had to pay extra to cover terrorism, and if they don't have the extra coverage, all of their losses might not be reimbursed.
Christine Romans explains that.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Week two of the Boston Marathon bombing story brings an insurance headache. What will this mean for small businesses who are just now reopening and their lost business?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS (voice-over): The physical damage because of the Boston Marathon bombings expected to be in the low millions of dollars, but it is the business interruption, the lost business of a week of revenue for some businesses, especially small businesses in Copley Square, that will be critical.
Now, if the Treasury Department designates this as a terrorist act, that means terrorism insurance kicks in. It's unclear how many of these businesses carry terrorism policies.
If it is officially deemed a terrorist attack, then your regular insurance policies are null and void and it's the terrorism insurance that takes over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Now, for individuals, people who with a car, with a boat, with personal property that may have been damaged or hurt in the siege on Boston, your regular comprehensive auto insurance policy will likely hold. Your regular homeowners' policy or renters' policy, you know, there's no exemption for terrorism in those.
But it is the small businesses around Copley Square and on Boylston Street who are going to have to try to figure out with their attorneys, quite frankly, and with state and insurance officials what happens next for them. Will they be able to get some sort of recompense for the lost business over the past week? Christine Romans, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And that could hurt small businesses, no doubt about it.
Just ahead, you're going to meet a remarkable guy, a firefighter- paramedic from the Lynn Fire Department near Boston who saved the life of 7-year-old Jane Richard the day of the bombing, the sister of the 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard, who was killed in the marathon bombings. Stay with us for that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, since Boylston Street reopened, that's the memorial that has sprouted up, so many people leaving flowers, mementos, signs and cards, just remembering, pausing to remember those who lost their lives and those whose lives have been forever changed.
The Boston bombings took a heavy toll on one family; 8-year-old Martin Richard was killed in the blast, his mother and sister badly wounded. The Richards might have lost their little girl, Jane, if it hadn't been for a firefighter-paramedic from the Lynn Fire Department, who was off duty, having a drink with his girlfriend when the bomb blast went off.
He rushed in; he saw the little girl and he saved her life right after the second blast.
I asked him about those moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So it was really the second blast when you realized...
MATT PATTERSON, FIREFIGHTER-PARAMEDIC: Second blast, yes, that took all doubts out of my mind. And I immediately -- I immediately started running towards the front, yelling for people to get back, get to the kitchen, get away from the windows, you know, not pushing people back, but, you know, at the same time, I was making it known that I was going forward and they were going the other way.
I get out to the patio and I don't know if it was just tunnel vision or fate or whatever it was, but I just looked and focused, and I just saw this one child in the middle of the street, just sitting there with this dazed, shocked look. Even from where I was, I could just tell this child was hurt.
COOPER: You could see her face.
PATTERSON: Yes, I could just -- yes, I could just tell. I mean, it's just -- like I said, that's why I don't know if it was tunnel vision or what, I just -- I zoomed in. Try and call it training or intuition or whatever, something was horribly wrong.
COOPER: Because it's pandemonium.
(CROSSTALK)
PATTERSON: It is. You know, it's hard to explain, but it is pandemonium. But you know, once you get something in your mind and once you focus on it, like that's the task at hand, because I don't know if it's training or if it's just the fact that I was distracted by just this one child, but it had my full attention.
COOPER: So you ran over to this little girl.
PATTERSON: I ran over to this little girl, who initially I thought was a boy. I knelt down, I you know, expressed, "Hi, I'm Matt; I'm here to help you." (Inaudible) a paramedic. I was like, you know, we're going to be all right. We're going to be OK.
COOPER: So she was with her father?
PATTERSON: She was with her father and her older brother. Neither one of them looked injured. I asked her her name. The reply I thought I got back was Shane. Turns out it was Jane. But (inaudible) the answer was irrelevant. The fact that she could speak told me that she had an airway, it was patent and that she was conscious and alert to at least what was going on.
She just -- she just looked in a state of shock. She just had this emotionless look and just, you know, I only remember her saying once or twice that her leg hurt.
COOPER: So was she crying?
PATTERSON: No. No crying. She looked me straight in the face and answered the question. You know, just, "What's your name?" And I said, turned out to be Jane, butt Shane. And you can imagine, like I said, with the chaos and the noise, you know, Shane, Jane, it was just -- it was --
COOPER: So what did you do first?
PATTERSON: Well, so once she spoke, I realized her airway was good. I looked down; I realized that she had a full left leg amputation. So I get up, I run back to the sidewalk; there happens to be a gentleman standing there. I don't know who you are; (inaudible). I need your belt, I need your belt. No hesitation; this man just ripped off his belt.
Gave it to me, took the belt, ran back over, applied a tourniquet. Started looking left, started looking right, I knew that we needed to get this child moving, like she was in serious condition. And nothing was going to save her life at this point besides surgery.
COOPER: It was critical to get the tourniquet on to stop bleeding.
PATTERSON: Yes, so the tourniquet was crucial. Without the tourniquet, she would have bled out.
COOPER: How quickly can someone bleed out?
PATTERSON: A child that size, I mean it really varies on the injuries and you know, if the wound cauterizes or if it's an artery, but 30 seconds to a minute (inaudible) for a child that size, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: So you got the belt, you ran back.
PATTERSON: So after the tourniquet was applied, another gentleman who had found out -- Michael Chase, great guy, ran up to me, asked me what he could do. I said, "Listen," I said, "we have to move this kid."
I said "This child needs transportation and medical help, like real medical help, like a doctor."
I heard the familiar sound of sirens, which was good. I looked up and down Boylston Street and I saw two fire engines and a medic truck coming towards us.
Immediately scooped up the child, told Michael, no matter what, don't let go of the tourniquet and then we ran in unison, down the street, I guess with the father and the son following -- didn't notice. Michael ended up staying and talking to them afterwards to calm them down.
COOPER: So you're running, holding Jane, and Michael is --
PATTERSON: Is running with me, holding the tourniquet on, yes, just to keep it cinched down because, you know, it's a belt. It's not made for -- it's not designed for that kind of pressure and that kind of tension. So yes, he had to run with me. His job was to hold the tourniquet and I was just supporting her weight while he held that on.
So I mean, it was crucial. Like without him or I, it wouldn't have worked. It wasn't -- it couldn't have been done with one person. You just -- you can't -- you needed -- both of us had to be there at that time and able to do what we did.
I ran back to the scene. I get upon another child, who I noticed that CPR is in progress. I don't know who was doing it, but I did notice that CPR was being done. I get up to the child; I notice that it's a boy. Couldn't have been anymore than 8 or 10 years old, smaller child. Severe injuries as well, lower extremities and abdominal. So I move my way to the head.
At this time there's some medical presence on the scene. So there's a first end bag, which is in EMT, our basic bag. And I administered two breaths to the child, let the CPR go, two more breaths to the child, checked for a pulse, there's no pulse.
I knew at that point that, you know, it's never a lost cause with a child or anything like that, but the situation depending and especially that situation with the amount of injured we have and the severity of the injuries, that there was nothing that -- there was nothing more that we could do for this boy.
COOPER: And that was Martin Richard.
PATTERSON: That was Martin Richard. I was like, that's the boy that we tried to save and ended up happen to just, you know, triage and move onto someone else that could be saved.
COOPER: That was Jane's brother.
PATTERSON: That was Jane's brother.
COOPER: What's that like to -- I mean, you're with these people in the most horrible moment, in this intimate moment, and to not even know who they are and then to see on television the picture of this little boy when he was alive.
PATTERSON: During the event and the tragedy, you know, you don't really have a connection. And it's not personal. I don't make -- to sound like that we don't care, because we do, but it's a very --
COOPER: You've got to be focused.
PATTERSON: It's a very methodical, you know, this is what I have to do; this is what can be done, this is who can be saved. And you know, you have to assess each injury and each victim separately and without bias. And it's just -- it's purely based on what can I do to save this person's life or help and can it be saved?
COOPER: Have you been able to talk to the Richard family? Is that something else (inaudible) like to do?
PATTERSON: I -- ultimately, I would -- I mean, if -- it's up to the family. I mean, I -- that family has suffered more in a day than anybody should in a lifetime. But, you know, I'd like an update. I'd like to know that, you know, we did make a difference. And it's one less person that they didn't get, and one less life that wasn't robbed.
COOPER: You saved a life.
PATTERSON: And that's ultimately what it's about. You just happen to be in a really bad situation, but you were there, you were put there for a reason and you had the knowledge and, you know, the guts or whatever you want to call it to run in there and make a difference.
COOPER: You just became a medic.
PATTERSON: I did.
COOPER: I'm very glad you became a medic.
PATTERSON: Me, too.
COOPER: Thank you.
PATTERSON: Hey, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
COOPER: (Inaudible). Thanks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: He just completed his certification to become a medic. An amazing guy, Matt Patterson.
Take a look at the cover of "Boston" magazine. It's a heart made of running shoes and every one of those shoes was worn by someone who ran in the Boston Marathon the day of the attack.
Coming up, the editor of "Boston" magazine joins me to explain how they did it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
