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At Least 12 Confirmed Dead In Shooting

Aired September 16, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: This is the worst shooting on a military base, the deadliest one, since the shootings at Ft. Hood when Major Nidal Hasan shot individuals, leaving 13 dead and 32 wounded in that shooting. We're told that 12 are dead here at the Naval Yard today. I believe the 12 includes the shooter, but quite honestly, the information is so fluid right now. We're not exactly 100 percent on whether the dozen dead includes the shooter who was shot on the scene.

There are a lot of witnesses to what happened, 3,000 individuals work at the Naval Yard, and we talked and heard from a lot of them in the minutes and hours after the attack. Let's play some of their sound.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD BRUNDIDGE, WITNESS: The fire alarm went off first, and I was on the phone. And somebody came to my desk and said this is not a fire alarm. Somebody has been shot in the building. So we went around trying to get people out of the building. As we were exiting the back door, we noticed him down the hall. We heard shots and as he came around the corner, he aimed his gun at us and fired at least two or three shots.

FRANK PUTZO, WITNESS: We were having a business meeting, it was about 20 after 8:00, and we heard three sounds. Sounded like a table collapsing on the ground, and we came out of the office and said what was that? About a minute later, we heard a very loud pop, which couldn't have been more than -- we estimated about 100 feet away. When that happened, everyone said this is no drill. Go, go! Emergency exits now, and a whole bunch of us were able to make it to the emergency exits, and we heard several more shots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you were just having a meeting.

PUTZO: Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then what?

PUTZO: And then we heard sounds, pops, but it sounded like a table. Nobody knew what it was. It sounded like a table dropping to the ground. The fourth shot was unmistakable, a loud gunshot.

PATRICIA WARD, WITNESS: I heard three shots, pow, pow, pow, 30 seconds later, I heard four more shots and a couple of us that were in the cafeteria knew they were shots and we started panicking. Then we were trying to decide which way we were going to run out. Everyone in the cafeteria was trying to run in the back. The workers told us to come in the back but I refused.

I wanted to get out of the building, so we all ran on the side of the building where security was. She was outside, and she told us to run as far as we could. She had her gun drawn. Someone had pulled the fire alarm. The next thing I heard, police cars, sirens, just happened so fast.

DR. JANIS ORLOWSKI, MEDSTAR WASHINGTON HOSPITAL CENTER: I would tell you from the reports of the victims, it was -- it had to be a semiautomatic because they're talking about gunshots that they heard in rapid succession. So I have no more information. We, of course, will get bullet fragments and have more information, and they will at the scene as well. But I don't have any more information right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: If you're just joining us, the chief of police here in Washington, D.C. reported that there are a dozen dead at the scene of the shooting here at the Washington, d.C. Naval Yard. We're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we're going to hear from President Obama who talked about the shooting earlier today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Greetings. I'm Jake Tapper. If you're just joining us, we're at the site of the Washington Navy Yard where earlier this morning there was a mass shooting. The chief of police just minutes ago reported 12 individuals were killed in the attack. Countless others were wounded. One shooter is dead. There is a suspicion that two other shooters are on the loose, potentially on the loose, these individuals.

One of them is an African-American between 40 and gift years old. The other is a white man between 40 and 50 years old. The white man with the handgun, the African-American with the long gun, both of them dressed according to eyewitness accounts, in Navy-style uniforms although we do not know if they're naval personnel.

Earlier, President Obama, who was previously scheduled to talk about the anniversary of the economy imploding five years ago, mentioned the shootings in remarks at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I have been briefed by my team on the situation. We still don't know all the facts, but we do know that several people have been shot and some have been killed. So we're confronting yet another mass shooting and today, it happened on a military installation in our nation's capital.

It's a shooting that targeted our military and civilian personnel. These are men and women who were going to work, doing their job, protecting all of us. They're patriots, and they know the dangers of serving abroad, but today, they faced the unimaginable violence that they wouldn't have expected here at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Horrific. The worst mass shooting at a U.S. military base since Fort Hood, tragedy, since the Fort Hood tragedy where Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 individuals, wounded dozens of others. Twelve individuals are dead here at the U.S. Naval Yard. There was a conspiracy, although one did not come to fruition, for violence committed by terrorists at Fort Dix.

As of right now, we have no idea the motive of the individual or individuals who carried out the horrific attacks. I want to bring in now John Matthews, the author of "Mass Shootings, Six Steps To Survival." He joins from us Las Vegas.

Mr. Matthews, it seems almost counter intuitive. Are there possibly strategies one can have for surviving? These things suddenly happen so quickly. How can one prepare?

JOHN MATTHEWS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY SAFETY INSTITUTE: Well, there are and in the model six steps for survival, we basically walk the citizens, walk people through, what do you need to do to survive one of these active shooter incidents? And the first thing in the model is to exit. If you have the ability to exit immediately, get as far away from the scene as you possibly can.

Several of the witnesses said today they heard pops. They heard gunshots, and yet 30 seconds or a minute later, somebody finally told them to leave. You need to recognize those shots are not normal and to get out of there and exit as soon as possible. If you can't exit, the next best thing you can do is to find cover.

Hide behind something that will protect you from the gunfire, a structural support beam in a building, behind a car in a parking lot or a cement curb in a parking lot. If you don't have cover, find concealment. Each one of these items will help you to survive a mass shooting. Concealment is hiding from the shooter, being out of his line of sight.

TAPPER: A lot of journalists in the post-9/11 era have taken survival training courses. I know I have. One of the things I learned from the former British Marines who instructed me was be the gray man, they called it, be the gray man, blend into the background. That's part of a survival strategy?

MATTHEWS: Well, we have had survivors survive some of these by hiding in commercial dishwashers, behind copiers. They get out of the shooter's line of sight and that's what's important. Usually, these individuals are after targets. They want high body counts. They are almost on a mission. So if you can get out of their line of sight and stay out of their line of sight, they're probably going to move fairly quickly past you.

Another strategy that has worked many, many times in these shootings is to play dead. Often the shooters will spray the room with bullets. Hit certain individuals but maybe not hurt or kill others. If you play dead, you have a great chance of surviving one of these incidents. TAPPER: All right, John Matthews, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we'll have the latest on our investigation with our own Brian Todd. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR VINCENT GRAY, WASHINGTON D.C.: At this hour, it appears that we have at least 12 fatalities and we're continuing to try to ascertain how serious this situation is and it doesn't get much more serious than that, obviously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray giving the horrific news that 12 are dead here at the Washington Naval Yard. The site of a mass shooting that took place this morning at around 8:15. Police were immediately dispatched and ultimately became a massive crime scene. Two individuals are still suspected shooters and on the loose.

I want to bring in Brian Todd to give us the latest on the investigation. First of all, this is -- we're talking from a crime scene.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We're on the perimeter of the Navy Yard, Jake. I was just east of here on the eastern perimeter not long ago, a very heavy police presence around there. Some kind of a staging area set up around there to try to go in there and clear some of the buildings. We have found from multiple sources that law enforcement agencies from various branches, the FBI and others, are working to clear the buildings and secure them. That's going to take a while.

TAPPER: When you talk about clearing a building, going in and making sure it's completely empty. Nobody is hiding.

TODD: Everybody is secured, everybody is accounted for.

TAPPER: There are no wounded individuals.

TODD: That's right. That effort is led by the FBI. Also, you can pick up from various witness accounts from the hospitals, witnesses describing the shooter and the kind of shots that were fired. You're getting an indication this was some kind of an automatic weapon because at least one witness described shots in multiple succession.

We're finding out that again, we have two suspected potential shooters, one shooter dead. Possibly, you know, they're sweeping buildings now, and you have possibly multiple -- an automatic type weapon being used at the scene according to witness accounts.

TAPPER: The guns -- the guns I have heard about, you have a physician at Washington Hospital Center saying that the patients who have been brought to her, one man, two women, described a rapid pop, pop, pop, I think she described it as a semiautomatic, not an automatic, and then you have Chief Lanier talking about the white man who is still on the loose had a handgun, according to some accounts. And the African- American man on the loose had a long gun of some sort.

TODD: Right, but that's not a lot of information. What we do know is she's giving us a much more detailed description of the African- American potential shooter than she has of the white male potential shooter.

TAPPER: Give the viewers a description of the African-American details.

TODD: A black male between the ages of 40 and 50, wearing some sort of olive military-style clothing. He has a medium complexion. She even described measurements, 5'10", 180 pounds, that's fairly specific with gray sideburns. That's much more specific than the other potential shooter she named, which was white male between 40 and 50 wearing a tan military-style uniform, a beret, the uniform possibly a military uniform. These could be uniforms that were similar to military, maybe not official military uniforms.

TAPPER: She took great pains to say these were not necessarily individuals in the Navy, although to get into the Navy Yard, it's a secure location. There was at least some sort of either fraud or they actually had, you know, valid passes to get in there. We have no idea.

TODD: And Eleanor Holmes Norton said she didn't think anybody could get in here without I.D. We're going off this a little bit to speculate, which we don't want to do, but we can say that this under normal circumstances is a very secure base.

TAPPER: Stand by, Brian, because we're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we have new information about the white male suspect still at large. Be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN's breaking coverage of the shooting at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard. I'm here with Brian Todd. Brian, we've been talking all day about not just the two suspects that the D.C. chief of police continually references, but also the fact that in a situation like this, the information that is flowing so quickly is often wrong.

TODD: That's right.

TAPPER: You now have some information for us about the white suspect of the two that Kathy Lanier, the chief of police, has identified.

TODD: We do, Jake, the Washington, D.C. police in a tweet just now have said that the white male in the tan outfit has been identified and is not a suspect or person of interest. So you can take that from potentially two other shooters to potentially one and we're going to see how that develops in the coming hours. But the white male identified by Chief Lanier just moments ago has now been basically accounted for as not a suspect, not a person of interest. We were talking about some of the misinformation that has been flowing all day and that's just the nature of these things that a lot of the information we have been getting in initial reports has turned out not to be true.

So right now, one potential other shooter, and again, we have to see how that developments, but the white male in question, not a potential shooter.

TAPPER: Right. And just a few hours ago, I was talking about individuals who were -- look at this, this is a scene from people who are potentially coming from a building that was on lockdown. We'll get more information about them in a second.

We were talking about earlier about how these two other potential shooters were being viewed even by some in the military and some law enforcement with some skepticism because what you have here is a completely chaotic situation. Individuals looking around, trying to figure out who's who, don't know everybody.

Police are coming in, military police are coming in, U.S. marshals, et cetera, and you see somebody you don't recognize. He's dressed in a uniform and he has a gun, and you don't know who he is. You tell that to the FBI when they debrief you. Eventually, they figure out it was a member of law enforcement or a member of the military.

TODD: Add to that you're on a military base where many people are wearing uniforms. You mentioned most of the employees here were civilian, but there are still many people in uniform. You see someone in a uniform and that person has a weapon. Again, witness accounts, very fluid, they have to kind of just piece through all of this, comb through it, and now they have been able to potentially weed out one of the potential shooters. But you've still got one out there, potentially again, who has -- and they have given a fairly -- excuse me.

TAPPER: Detailed description.

TODD: Detailed description of that person of a black male between the ages of 40 and 50, wearing olive clothing, military-style clothing with medium complexion, gray sideburns, 5'10", 180 pounds. That's much more specific than the white male we can now take out of the equation.

TAPPER: I want to go now to our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, who is on Capitol Hill where security has been increased, but nothing yet in lockdown, unless they have changed anything since the last time we spoke -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's about to. A senior Democratic source tells me that the Senate is about to go into lockdown. What that means is no one will be allowed into this building and no one will be allowed out. The Senate already went into recess about 55 minutes ago, out of an abundance of caution. That's a term that comes from the Senate sergeant in arms.

This is something I just got on my e-mail from a Democratic source who is telling me about this, says after Virginia tech, Boston, et cetera, it's just not wise to start sending staff outside to wander. We want to give police in D.C. a chance to do their jobs. And just by way of the geography here, just to give you some context, here at the capitol, about a mile or a mile and a half away from the Navy Yard so it's not that far.

There certainly is a lot of concern about if there really are these suspects at large, what that means for people inside this building. Now, I should also tell you this is the senate. The Senate is behind me. You see there's nobody there because they're in recess. Down there on that side, it's the House.

They're also not in session now, but I got word back from somebody in the leadership there who said they have not made the decision quite yet to lockdown. And I was also told it's going to be for about two hours in duration so far, so no one will be allowed in or out of the Senate for two hours. Again, they say, out of an abundance of caution -- Jake.

TAPPER: Of course, and we all remember when the shooter went into the capitol and killed a couple Capitol Hill police officers in the '90s. So that's still very resonant in the minds of those who are responsible for security on Capitol Hill. Dana Bash, thank you so much. We'll come back to you soon. I want to take a very quick break. When we come back, some news, some accounts, and testimony, from an eyewitness to the shooting. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And we continue our breaking news here live on CNN, as we're now in hour eight of what is still considered a crime scene at the Washington Navy Yard in Southeast D.C. This is an up and coming part of the city in which now tragedy has struck. We have learned in the last hour from both the mayor of the District of Columbia and also from the Washington Metropolitan Police, from the chief specifically, the staggering number that's tough, still, to wrap your head around, 12 dead as a result of this mass shooting at Building 197, specifically.

It's the Naval Sea Systems Command Center in this massive navy complex, 3,000 or so employees. Many of whom are civilians. The first call came into Washington police around 8:15 this morning and now we have learned 12 dead, and according to the police chief, that includes the shooter himself.

As we continue to look at all of this video playing out, we're continuing to hear from eye witnesses. What did they say? What did they hear? We'll talk to one here in a moment.

Also, we're awaiting updates as far as those injured because we have the 12 dead and we have multiple injured, many of whom have been rushed to these Washington hospitals. We're awaiting a news conference from Washington Hospital Center specifically. We heard from a doctor earlier today and she was detailing three victims who were rushed to her hospital, one of whom was a metropolitan police officer and two other women, all of them suffering gunshot wound.