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Possible Shooting at D.C. Naval Yard; Unemployment Rate Lowest Since April 2008; David Sweat Spilling Out More Details of Escape; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 02, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00] JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: The witnesses we talked to were simply terrified with those memories of that 2013 shooting. Of course, all the news about the country being on heightened alert going into the July 4th weekend, but we still do not know what prompted this.

The Metropolitan Police Department is going to be having a press briefing somewhat soon this morning. That may give us more of a sense of what the 911 call was that triggered all of this. But police took this very, very seriously, as you can imagine here. But the workers are slowly beginning to go back, a sense of normalcy and calm. I even saw a couple of police officers fist bumping each other just a few minutes ago. So a sense that this situation seems to be about over -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Very good to hear.

Jeff Zeleny, thanks for the reporting on this all morning as it was unfolding.

I do want to let you know that there is going to be a press conference held there at the Navy Yard very shortly, update us on the situation, perhaps be able to tell us sort of how this all went down, maybe more details about that 911 call that sparked such concern.

Let's talk about it with Jonathan Gilliam, former Navy SEAL, also and former FBI special agent.

Look, you're looking at an environment right now where there's heightened concern about security across this country, the heightened concern about ISIS, some of these lone wolf one-off attacks that we've been seeing. The response reflected that today.

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: It did, and I don't want people to get gun shy not to call 911. It's OK. If you think you see something or you think you hear something, it's OK to react. It's better that you, you know, in this case if it turns out where somebody made a 911 call and there was nothing there, it's better to be vigilant, especially this weekend, than to just cast it aside.

We don't want another Boston bombing where people looked at a bag that was set down and did nothing about it and then ended up getting their legs blown off. We don't need that to happen. The other thing that I think is a positive out of this is the fact that this was a dress rehearsal for law enforcement and a dress rehearsal for the country to kind of get our wits about us for this weekend because of these potential heightened threats.

So I think there's a lot of positive that can come out of this even though it looks, you know, like it was, you know -- there's a lot of negative to it, but the fact is people need to realize this heightened awareness and the heightened potential of threats this weekend, it's OK to call 911. Don't be afraid of the response that may come.

HARLOW: All right. Thank you very much, Jonathan Gilliam, with us this morning.

GILLIAM: You got it.

HARLOW: Let's go to Lt. General Mark Hertling with me as well, sir, from Orlando.

Talking about the response in the environment that we're in right now, sir.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. Poppy, and first of all, can I elaborate a little bit on what Jonathan just said because it's fascinating. This is a different kind of culture. The military and their connections with the local law enforcement is a different kind of culture. They may have proclaimed the all-clear and people seem to be moving out, but I might suggest that they are probably conducting an after action review, what we call an after action review, right now.

What went right? What could we improve on for next time? How do we get the information out? How do we put what we determined based on this incident on the wire for cities and institutions throughout the country so they can learn from what happened this morning? What kind of reaction did we have? How could we have made that reaction better? What's the coordination with the law enforcement and about a thousand other things that they really want to polish the diamond so they can react to other situations like this in a better way the next time.

But it's a very good question because we are in the Fourth of July weekend. Alert is heightened. People are fearful. They've seen things happening in other countries, so as Jonathan just said, we've got to be wary, and the best way to process these things is to report when you see something unusual, to take extra precautions to make sure people stay safe, and make sure that you don't overlook the kinds of things that might otherwise be overlooked in a more secure environment.

HARLOW: What has changed, if you could, sir, on these military bases in the wake of some of these horrific attacks, as we saw at Fort Hood, as we saw here in 2013. What has changed just internally in terms of the security structure, who can be armed, who can't be armed, what you're walking through, what kind of detectors, if you will, going into these buildings?

HERTLING: Well, it's sad, Poppy, in a way truthfully. I mean, I'm going to go back before 2013 with what happened at the Washington Naval Yard and in all of our bases. After 9/11 we as a military, if I can include myself in that, we as a military closed in tight. We became a self-centered organization on our bases, garrisons, and posts throughout the world. We became secure in our own domain, and we, in some cases, cut off our connections with the outside of the base.

You have to go through unbelievable procedures when something is at Threat Con Bravo, Threat Condition Bravo or Force Protection Bravo when you have to go through the gates. It's difficult to get in. You can't have visitors. If you do have visitors, it takes them a long time to process personal information to get on these military bases, and it just makes it tough. It's unfortunate, but it's what we in the military call a condition of the battlefield.

[10:05:15] I mean, I command -- my last command was in Europe and I left there in 2013 when I retired, and what's sad about overseas bases, the same rules are in effect, and, in fact, they've been at Force Protection Bravo for the last 15 years even though the United States just went through it last week or last month, but what's interesting is you lose the connection with the good people in the local society, and they lose the connection with what the military is and what it does for the society. That's part of the unfortunate second order effect of some of these closures of bases and more increased security.

HARLOW: Jonathan Gilliam made a point saying, look, even if something like this is a false alarm, do not be nervous at all to call 911 if you think you see anything suspicious or troubling. Do you fear that a situation like this makes people think twice, especially over the holiday weekend with this heightened security concern before they call the authorities?

HERTLING: No, I actually think based on the great work of the media publicizing some of these actions that people are actually considering and looking around them, becoming better situationally aware, seeing the packages that are dropped, seeing the backpacks that are placed at strange locations, those kinds of things, and it's critically important to call 911 or get a local authority and tell them the things that you see.

That's only a part of it, though. We also have to be aware of our surroundings in terms of people, the human resource. What are people doing? Not just what packages they're dropping off or how they're trying to get into a secure area, but what are the kinds of actions of people that we might see? If we see an individual during the Fourth of July celebration seemingly trying to scout out an approach or recon an area and do something, that should be reported as strange behavior, too, to local law enforcement.

You can't be calling 911 on everything, but you do have to call it when your spider sense goes up and you think something wrong is about to happen.

HARLOW: All right, Lt. General Mark Hertling, thank you so much for that and for being with us this morning through the breaking news. We appreciate it. Jonathan Gilliam, thank you as well. And our entire team on the ground there in Washington. Still to come here in the NEWSROOM, the latest on the interrogation of

escapee David Sweat. New details about the tools he and Richard Matt used to break out of that maximum security prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:12:03] HARLOW: All right. You're looking at live pictures of what will be a press conference held there right near the Washington Navy Yard in the wake of that scare this morning. It was a false alarm. The 911 call that came in about a potential active shooter turned out not to be that. Washington police issuing an all clear, but of course people have questions. How did this happen? They want to talk about the response as well, what more do they know about that call. That will happen any moment. We'll bring it to you live as soon as it does.

I do want to get to some very -- some other very important news that we got this morning about the health of the economy and what it means to each and every one of you out there. 223,000 jobs added last month. That brought the unemployment rate down to 5.3 percent. That is the lowest jobless rate in this country in more than seven years.

Christine Romans all over it, tracking the numbers.

How good was this?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And that bears repeating, the lowest jobless rate in seven years when you have to go back to April 2008 for this low of a jobless rate. That was before the crisis. The crisis, Poppy, that sank its teeth into the American economy and caused all that job loss. This is over the past year. Look at that. 5.3 percent now is the number and the trend has been like this for a couple of years.

I want to show you the recovery overall here because it's really important to put it in a bigger term context. Look at this, Poppy. We're now back to where we were before the financial crisis that really was so, so devastating. When you look at jobs added this is incredibly important, too, because we have 223,000. You know, this is more than 200,000. That is enough to start lowering the unemployment rate and to bring everybody into the labor market who needs to get in there. And when you've seen over the past couple of years consistently strong and steady hiring. Let me show you sectors.

HARLOW: Sure.

ROMANS: This is important. Architects, computer systems designers, engineers, temp workers, as well, but business and information services, office jobs growing, health care jobs. This is in hospitals, this is ambulatory care, nursing home were hiring pretty briskly, assisted living centers are hiring, and retail, you know, bars and restaurants, retail, all of those are places where you're starting to see hiring really start to pick up speed.

HARLOW: Some of the jobs that have higher salaries.

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: Where so much of the recovery nearly going with these jobs where people just weren't making enough to get by, still, though, you've got concern about wage growth.

ROMANS: Wage growth about 2 percent. I'd like to see more. The Fed would like to see more. But other kinds of signals that we've been seeing show that if the labor market stays strong like this, you're going to see wages start to rise. You're still hearing people talk about there are too many people who have fallen out of the labor market, that's still a concern. But when I look over the past seven years, I see something pretty exciting.

I see the long-term unemployed about a million fewer -- long-term unemployed over the past year. That's important. When you look at something called the U-6, you know, the real unemployment rate or the underemployment rate.

HARLOW: Right.

ROMANS: That's also at a seven-year low. That's a number that all the people out of work, all the people who want to work full time but are working part time, people who are working below their skills, that's also at a seven-year low.

HARLOW: Do you think more -- because we have seen some of these big companies raising wages, Wal-Mart is one of them, for example. We just IKEA do some of these.

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: Do you think that that is encouraging some people to get back into the workforce who might have said before, I'm not going to work for $7.25 an hour?

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: That doesn't make sense. But now you're talking about $10, OK, that makes more sense for my economic situation.

[10:15:05] ROMANS: I think it also shows -- because some of these companies are doing this, not the federal government, you know, because they can't get that through Washington.

HARLOW: Right.

ROMANS: But these companies are doing it because they need to raise the wages because they're going to lose their workers. There is demand for those kinds of jobs. They don't want the turnover problem that happens when people start hopping to where there's $1 higher wage. So that's what's kind of interesting about that, too.

I think you're going to start to see those play into higher wages and I think there's just such competition in some parts of the labor market right now that wages eventually have to start rising.

HARLOW: Politically.

ROMANS: Uh-huh.

HARLOW: What does this mean politically? Obviously after these reports you always get the response from the Democrats, from the Republicans.

ROMANS: Yes. Yes.

HARLOW: What are they saying?

ROMANS: You will hear on the campaign trail from the Republicans that there are too many people who are left out of the labor market. They're going to look at the labor force participation rate, the lowest since the 1970s, they're going to focus on that. But when you look at the -- objectively at the numbers here, it has been a very good week for President Obama and all of the things that he got through, the Supreme Court going in his direction.

A bunch of different initiatives over the past week. These numbers are good for the sitting president. These are the lowest unemployment rate since he came into office. And so this is -- this is a good number for the White House.

HARLOW: All right. Christine Romans, breaking it all down. Thank you, Christine. Appreciate it.

When we come back, more on what the D.C. police are saying and the search of the Navy Yard building. We know it's been completed and I just want to emphasize, no evidence of a shooting or anyone injured. False alarm being called in. We're waiting to hear what they say on that press conference.

Still to come, also the latest on the interrogation of prison escapee David Sweat. New details about how on earth he and Richard Matt broke out of that maximum security prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:20:57] HARLOW: All right. You're looking at live pictures there as a lot of journalists there awaiting a press conference in Washington, D.C., about what happened this morning at the Navy Yard. There was a 911 call. It turned out to be a false alarm about a potential shooting there, at the same Navy Yard where that tragic shooting happened back in 2013.

Again, an all clear, but people want answers and details as to what the call was about, where it came from, et cetera. So we'll bring you that live as soon as it does begin.

Also, we're following this, this morning. The body of former prison escapee Richard Matt being transported to his family as New York state police say they have heard enough for now from his fellow escapee David Sweat. Sweat's really jaw-dropping claims have given them a lot to investigate. Obviously action has already been taken. We're learning that Sweat told investigators that Matt, who was

fatally shot last week by police, was out of shape, that he was drinking too much, and that prompted the two fugitives to split up while they were on the run.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick, who's been following this investigation from the beginning, joins me now.

What more has he said to police? You certainly remember, when this news broke Sunday night, you and I were talking and we said, will he talk? Will he give anything up? Well, he certainly has.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's giving up certain pieces of information. We want to be very careful about how we characterize this information because right now everything that he says, everything that comes out of his mouth is going to have to be investigated, corroborated, and then ultimately confirmed. But what he is telling investigators is that essentially the two men got easy -- got lucky and that this whole thing was easy.

That in fact they happened to be in an underground passageway when they discovered a sledgehammer that had been left behind apparently by construction workers. Well, the question, of course, what were they doing in this underground passageway? When were they there and when did they find that alleged sledgehammer that they used to break out and get up to the manhole?

So also David Sweat claiming that it wasn't he who had an affair with Joyce Mitchell, that it was Matt, and that, in fact, it was Joyce Mitchell's idea to kill her husband. Now obviously Joyce Mitchell denying those claims and clearly he would likely be deposed in any sort of trial against her in connection with this breakout.

Now also David Sweat telling investigators that he knew that Richard Matt had been killed. The district attorney has confirmed that in fact the men did have radios and were monitoring, it appears, people -- the searchers and the progress that they were making and that apparently David Sweat also and Richard Matt came very close to being caught twice, once when the two men were hiding by a cabin, which police were there questioning residence, but also one time after Sweat had broken off, he was hiding up in a tree perch basically, a hunting perch.

HARLOW: Do we know how they got these radios?

FEYERICK: From the cabins. It appears they took them from the cabins. The cell service up there is very spotty. And so in order to be able to communicate -- and that was something that I had -- that a source had told me more than -- more than a week ago that they were very concerned that in fact all the communication between authorities was being monitored. You had a thousand people who were up there and the only way they could really speak to one another was through these radios. So yes, that was a big thing.

HARLOW: Twelve people so far let go or put on leave at the prison. Do you get a sense that this is the beginning of the fallout? FEYERICK: What this is, it's the beginning of the investigation. The

three people at the top, the three executives, they have been put on administrative leave. One of them actually was the chief of security and it was his responsibility to make sure that those cells were secure and that protocol was being followed. So the superintendent, we're now learning, he was there for really just a year and that he inherited Clinton Correctional Facility from a different superintendent.

So all that's under investigation. The people who were on patrol that night, several of them have been put on leave for the time being while it's investigated, but we're learning a couple of additional details there which we'll be able to report a little later on.

HARLOW: Yes. And you've got what Joyce Mitchell says and you've got what David Sweat says, and you've got what I'm sure the other inmates are saying. There's a lot of taking people at their word.

FEYERICK: Yes. Exactly.

HARLOW: Deborah, thank you. Stay with me actually as I bring in Eric Jensen, former inmate.

[10:25:03] You were an inmate at this facility. You knew Richard Matt, you knew David Sweat.

ERIC JENSEN, FORMER INMATE, CLINTON CORRECTIONAL FACILITY: I did.

HARLOW: I just want your gut reaction to -- as more of these details trickle out as Deb just went through for us, does it surprise you how easy it was for them to get out?

JENSEN: It does. It's really surprising. When I was there, the Clinton that I see and I witnessed, it was a -- it was a fortress. You couldn't get through your steel walls without a hacksaw blade, and in order to get a hacksaw blade you had to go and get it from an outside worker. And in order to do that he had to have this relationship with Joyce Mitchell.

HARLOW: You know, there's been a lot of talk, as Deb and I have been discussing, about what they knew about the outside. Right? When Joyce Mitchell didn't show up to pick them up.

JENSEN: Right.

HARLOW: They had to scramble for a plan B. And, you know, the concern is, did correctional workers there tell them, hey, there are these hunting cabins, they are nearby. Here is what they're stocked with, et cetera. So they knew to run to that as a plan B and get these radios, get this gear, get food, get substance?

JENSEN: Well, most definitely. They used to come in and bring pictures of their camping trips, their hunting trips.

HARLOW: Which, by the way, they should not do, right? Totally off. JENSEN: No. They do not supposed to bring anything in like that.

But the level of fraternization inside that facility, it was a common practice.

HARLOW: What was it like for you -- I mean, what kind of relationship did you -- is it sort of like a hey, buddy to the officers?

JENSEN: Well, pretty much. It's -- you know, can you do a favor for me if I do a favor for you? You know, if I give you some information, you know, hey, you'll go get a TV from another block for me.

HARLOW: But what can the inmate do for the correctional officer?

JENSEN: He can tell where the drugs are. He can tell who has knives. Who is in gangs. If you're in a gang inside a New York state prison, you automatically go to the box. So only if they find the gang material, though. So I mean, they know who is in the gangs, but you've got to tell them, like, where the gang stuff is. Like they keep their codes, what it's called, they keep it hidden.

So if you snitch and say hey, this is where they keep their codes, this is where they keep their weapons, you know, they don't want the gangs inside the prison. They try to get rid of them as best as they can.

HARLOW: Was there any inclination among you know, the -- I say the authorities there or the higher ups that this was going on? You knew it as a prisoner, your fellow prisoners knew it, but was it sort of accepted at the top?

JENSEN: Yes. I believe -- I believe there was an officer on that said that there's no secret inside a prison. You know, everybody knows everything. So if the warden, the superintendent did not know what was going on inside his prison, then he wasn't doing his job correctly because you're supposed to know what's going on inside those walls.

HARLOW: But, Deb, tell us a little bit more about this sledgehammer.

FEYERICK: Well, again, all that's under investigation. I had spoken to so many different people. And first of all, the one thing I do want to say is that even if there were several corrupt correction officials that were in there, they will be dealt with. Obviously they're going to look for patterns. The problem is that what was going on at Clinton Correctional Facility may have been no different than what was going on at other facilities.

One thing that we're learning is that there definitely was a breakdown in the rules that were supposed to be followed. Cells are supposed to be searched routinely on a regular basis. They call them --

JENSEN: Shakedowns.

FEYERICK: Shakedowns. So they're supposed to be checked, OK, and you sort of vary it up. That wasn't being done. You're supposed to check the integrity of the walls weekly so that you can go with rubber mallets.

JENSEN: Rubber mallets.

FEYERICK: And hit the bars and hit the walls, and make sure. Now procedures are -- the rules are being put in place so that in fact this does happen. So they are going to really start doing these searches of the cells.

HARLOW: Right.

FEYERICK: They're going to be looking at the walls. Interestingly, there's going to be no additional power to the cells because one of the things that the inmates do is they go -- they pay somebody to go behind and sort of juice the fuse.

JENSEN: Right. Rig the fuse.

FEYERICK: So that people can use more things in their cell to cook, things like that.

HARLOW: Right.

FEYERICK: That's not going to happen.

HARLOW: OK.

FEYERICK: And so what also -- people are saying, well, David Sweat some sort -- you know, is he going to be like a folk hero? He may be a folk hero but also let's be very clear, the privileges that a lot of these inmates had in prison, they are shut down right now, and so you're going to have a lot of anger, and that's going to also create a very different situation as I'm sure you can talk about inside the prison with this inmate -- with these inmates and with this control and with the anger.

HARLOW: And quickly before I go, just Eric, have you heard from any of the inmates, former inmates who are still in the facility at Clinton Correctional about what may have changed since?

JENSEN: No, no. And if I do hear from them, I'm sure it's not going to be any positive feedback.

HARLOW: Yes. Yes. All right, Eric Jensen, thank you very much.

JENSEN: You're very welcome.

HARLOW: Deborah Feyerick, great reporting as always.

All right, 10:30 Eastern. Bottom of the hour. Resetting for you here. I'm Poppy Harlow in today for my friend Carol Costello. Thank you so much for being with us.

To politics now and really who everyone is talking about right now, Donald Trump, sticking by his inflammatory comments on Mexicans, on immigrants, even as retailers. One of the biggest retailers in the world pulls away from him. We're talking about Macy's. Also some of his Republican rivals seeking to distance themselves.

[10:30:03] Donald Trump speaking to my colleague Don Lemon just last night.