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At This Hour

David Sweat Captured 2 Miles From Canadian Border; Greece Shutting Down Banks as Panic Spreads. Aired 11:00-11:30a ET.

Aired June 29, 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]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Captured alive two miles from the Canadian border. David Sweat in critical condition but able to speak. Hear what these fugitives did to keep search teams off their scent.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, what does life now hold for David Sweat behind bars? Will he face retaliation? Will he name names? We'll ask the former inmate who knew him in prison.

BOLDUAN: American markets on edge as one nation sits on the brink of financial collapse. Greece shutting down banks as panic spreads. So what happens next?

Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. Happening now, doctors in Albany, New York, are working to keep captured convict David Sweat alive. Police want answers, answers as to how Richard Matt and Sweat escaped prison in Upstate, New York. Answers about how they managed to out run the law for some three weeks.

Sweat is in critical condition right now with bullet wounds to his torso. He is under heavy guard. A New York state police sergeant spotted chase and shot Sweat yesterday right near the Canadian border. Richard Matt was shot and killed on Friday.

BOLDUAN: Now, the investigation quickly moves to a new phase. Investigators can now take all the questions that they've had straight to the source, but how much are they going to find out from David Sweat? Will he name names of who may have helped him, helped him and Richard Matt pull off that daring escape?

This morning we learned that investigators believed Sweat and Matt spent months tapping guards for information about hunting cabins and the terrain around the prison as they prepared to breakout. Maps, tools, and pop-tarts, those are just some of the things that Sweat had with him when he was caught.

Sara Ganim is at the hospital where Sweat is right now being treated. So, Sara, have investigators yet been able to interview him?

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, he just got here last night, Kate, and they are, they are wanting to definitely talk to him. State police saying this morning that he begun to talk a little bit, unclear though if that would be considered an interview. If investigators have been able to ask him questions. That's not clear.

He's still in critical condition according to the hospital. The governor of New York saying this morning he's in critical but stable condition. We do know that he's being treated by trauma doctors, by vascular surgeons for those two bullet wounds that we know he sustained when he was captured, but it is in investigators' best interests. They say they want him to survive. They want to be able to talk to him.

You know, they do have some detail about this brazen escape, about how they managed to get out and then stay out for more than three weeks. They have some information from the two people who worked inside the prison who have already been charged with helping them, but there's nothing quite like talking to the source, and that is why investigators want to be able to talk to him. Is there anyone else out there who may have helped them? John and Kate?

BERMAN: Yes. You can bet they want him to talk and talk as soon as possible. Sara Ganim, thanks so much. You know, so many people breathed a sigh of relief when these men was caught, the other convict killed. Now, David Sweat's own mother sounded relieve. Pamela Sweat said she started crying when she heard that he was still alive. But she does add that she would have given his son no quarter if he had shown up at her door.

PAMELA SWEAT, DAVID SWEAT'S MOTHER: I felt like a big lift was off my shoulders that he was captured and he is alive. My son knows if he would have come here, I would have knocked him out and had them guys take him to jail by themselves because that's just the way I am. I have always done it to him when he was bad.

BOLDUAN: Well, we now know that Sweat definitely won't be going home again, but what happens when he goes back to prison?

Eric Jensen is a former inmate at Clinton Correctional who knew these inmates behind bars. Eric, it's great to have you on.

ERIC JENSEN, FORMER INMATE, CLINTON CORRECTIONAL FACILITY: Thank you. Thanks John.

BOLDUAN: You know, the, the Governor, Andrew Cuomo, he said yesterday, he said over the weekend, the nightmare is now over, but is the nightmare now just beginning for David Sweat? What's it going to be like when he goes back into prison?

JENSEN: The nightmare is just beginning for him. When he goes back to prison, he's going to be locked down 23 hours in a cell. He'll have one hour recreation which will come from a little dog kennel sized gate that's on the back of his cell that an officer controls the sliding glass door that opens. He'll go out, do his hour of recreation. Come back in.

[11:05:00] He has a shower in his cell. He has a little slot in his cell door for his food. He has no reason to leave that cell unless it's for a special visitation and when he does leave that cell, it will be in manacles, handcuffs, shackles, et cetera.

BERMAN: Now, wherever he goes, no doubt the guards, the prisoners will know who he is. Will he be singled out for particular scorn do you think among the guards?

JENSEN: Yes. Definitely for the guards. I feel like they've been one upped. That's probably how they are feeling right now. That they - that he got over on them regardless that they did catch him but he did manage to get through the highest security facility in New York state.

BERMAN: What will they do?

JENSEN: Well, you know, there's numerous things that you do to retaliate to an inmate. You don't feed them. They skip chows, they do stuff. They throw stuff in your food when they do feed you. They don't give you your recreation. They will turn your water off in your cell so you can't use the shower, you can't use the sink. You go to the bathroom but you can't flush it. So, in essence you know, it's really like you're living in your filth.

BOLDUAN: Wow. And then on the part of the inmates because I remember last time that you were on, you talked about how murderers, killers, they're kind of revered, they are held up. They're looked up to, if you will, in prison. What - how are prisoners going to treat him now?

JENSEN: Well, I think everybody in Clinton is mad because now there's going to be a whole new reform in there, but on the same token, I do believe that majority of the prisoners were rooting for him regardless of what privileges they were going to lose.

BERMAN: Now, have you ever known any escapees who were caught? Who - have you ever known...

JENSEN: No, no. I have never known an escapee before that escaped from anywhere.

BERMAN: So when you're talking about the retaliation that he may suffer, the attitudes that they may have. You're basing that on?

JENSEN: I'm basing that on just the fact that they're losing their privileges. Now, there's going to be a higher security level at Clinton. Now, everything is going to be under scrutiny. Governor Cuomo spoke about it yesterday, that he's launching an investigation into how these prisons are ran and if a reform is need, then he's going to reform everything if that's what has to be done.

BOLDUAN: You know, investigators are also really looking into right now the relationships, we're not talking about the Joyce Mitchell relationship necessarily, but the relationship between guards and inmates. The fact they may have gotten too friendly in nature with these two guys because they were able to pull information out about what life is like beyond prison doors. Get information about the hunting cabins and what the fields are like around the prison. Where are these opportunities for this kind of idle kind of chat? JENSEN: I, I believe I was on your show when I spoke about how

Officer Palmer did bring in Venison and he brought in -

BOLDUAN: Yes.

JENSEN: - actually pictures of camping and hunting trips like that and he would show them to the inmates in the tailor shop, you know, and in the honor block. But it wasn't, it wasn't...

BOLDUAN: It wasn't unusual.

JENSEN: It wasn't unusual and officers would be there for 10 years with the same guys. You know, they're shooting the wind every day talking about this, talking about that, complaining about their wife, their kids, their dog, whatever it may be and people extract that information.

BERMAN: If you're on the inside, do you want to be friends with guards?

JENSEN: You don't want to be friends, no. You don't want to be friends but in Clinton there was a certain level of fraternization that was acceptable because everybody knew that if you fraternize, you would, you would be granted more privileges.

BERMAN: So you're doing it for a reason, you're not just doing it because...

JENSEN: No.

BOLDUAN: You don't want to be friends.

JENSEN: Yes. You know, you're definitely not doing it to be friends. You're doing it for the privileges that come along with the perks.

BOLDUAN: What's - we all know what solitary confinement is like in theory.

JENSEN: Right.

BOLDUAN: It's - it sounds like it will be in solitary confinement if not forever for years. For an inmate, do you fear solitary confinement? What, what is that fear like?

JENSEN: You, you fear, you fear solitary confinement because the little privileges that you do have at a regular facility are stripped from you. You no longer are allowed to wear your sweatpants. You're own sneakers. You have to wear state issued everything. You're no longer allowed to watch your television. You're allowed - no longer allowed to cook.

There are certain levels in the S Block facilities. That's probably where he will be going to, an S Block, that you can, you can gain certain privileges back, as such headphones. They have headphone jacks built into the wall. When you get to level four, I believe you're allowed to plug your headphones in and listen to the radio.

BERMAN: He's got a long, long stay ahead of him.

JENSEN: Long, long time.

BERMAN: Eternity.

JENSEN: If not the rest of his life there.

BERMAN: All right. Eric Jensen, thank you for being with us.

JENSEN: Very well.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for the perspective.

JENSEN: You're welcome.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us next, inside their strategy while they were on the run. We're now hearing how the fugitives covered their tracks for so long and also what injuries that they had. Plus this...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the sort of thing...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are such...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch yourself, Richard.

BERMAN: Do you see it right there. Anger and panic as a nation shuts down banks, denies people their own cash, all to avoid a financial collapse, and I got to tell you, Wall Street is nervous, very nervous about this, this morning.

Plus, a string of fires ripping through churches across the south. Some arson, others still a mystery. Who is behind them and are they connected?

[11:10:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: At this hour, the long manhunt for two killers is over. One of them is dead, the other captured. David Sweat was caught after being shot twice just two miles from the Canadian border.

BERMAN: Investigators now believe that these two killers had been gathering information for almost a year on hunting cabins and the terrain around the prison and they used pepper, pepper, to try to throw off the search dogs. Joining us is former inspector for the U.S. marshal service, Gerard McCann.

Gerard, thanks so much for being with us.

GERARD MCCANN, FORMER SENIOR INSPECTOR, U.S. MARSHAL'S SERVICE: Thank you. Good morning, Kate and John.

BERMAN: Good morning. I wonder if we can show you the picture, throw up the picture of David Sweat when he was captured. We see him without a shirt on. He had been shot obviously a couple times, so worse for the wear along those lines, but he shaved. He had been clean shaven. He doesn't look particularly drawn or thin. He's wearing camouflage there. What do you make of his condition after 23 weeks on the run. What do these pictures tell you?

MCCANN: Well, obviously they, they had some access to, to food. They, they were in the - at least one hunting cabin that we know of. So they probably had access to some toiletries and some food.

BOLDUAN: And also then when we - we heard from the governor this morning that he had a bag, he had pop-tarts, he had maps, they had bug spray. I mean, right away a lot of folks had been kind of speculating that the fact - once Joyce Mitchell kind of backed out of this alleged plan to be there to pick them up, that they didn't have a Plan B.

But when you kind of see these pictures and you hear that from the governor, you think it sounds like they did have a plan. What do you make of that?

MCCANN: Well, they, they may have had a plan, but they also may have - I guess there was some information that they had left with a guitar case. They, they could have had provisions in that.

[11:15:00] You know, Joyce Mitchell could have left supplies for them ahead of time. The pop wo - pop-tarts aren't going to go bad anytime soon. So she put them in a plastic bag and, and left them somewhere that they had access or if they were in one of the cabins, they'd certainly be able to get ahold of those.

BERMAN: Actually, we don't know that just yet, the details of how they survived. Just one of the things police want to get from him as soon as they can, as soon as he gets better from the gunshot wounds. I think one of the, the most interesting details is the pepper. They apparently used pepper, household pepper, to try to throw off the dogs that were searching for them, an idea maybe they got from Cool Hand Luke from 67?

MCCANN: That's quite possible. I mean, I don't know if they have access to the Internet in there, but, you know, they do have access to the guards obviously and they do have some, some able - some ability to communicate with the outside world through the guards and get information and they do research, and Matt had escaped before, so maybe he learned a few things from his last episode.

BERMAN: Does that work? Does pepper work to throw off dogs?

MCCANN: I, I can't answer that, but I - it seems like it might have worked at least in this situation.

BOLDUAN: Yes. It was pretty fascinating that he was also caught, David Sweat was caught two miles from the Canadian border. I mean, that was one big question all along. Were they going to try to make it to Canada or were they going to try to make it to Mexico? The fact he was two miles from the Canadian border, if he had crossed over, what would that have meant? How would that have changed the search for him? MCCANN: I don't think it really would have changed a lot at all.

We have a very, very good relationship with the Canadian authorities, with the Mounties and the, the Toronto fugitive unit. There's - and those guys, they're, they're, they're not backwards. I mean, they, they're on top of their game and very good at what they do. And I'm sure they had been paying attention to all this. So had Sweat been caught, they either would have kicked him back across the border or he would have ended up in the extradition procedure, but either way he would have come back.

BERMAN: You know, when all was said and done, 23 days, it seemed like a long time while it was going on, yet 23 days later David Sweat is caught by, by one you know, adept and very smart state trooper because he was running along, jogging along a road. Richard Matt was killed on Friday as he coughed in the woods and there are reports they had alcohol on his breath. You know, was this really just a matter of time? Were these guys going to get caught pretty much no matter what?

MCCANN: I think it was. You know, if, if whatever plan they had in place had, had gone off without a hitch and if they had gotten the ride they needed and they had made whatever connections they might have had, this, this could have played out for any length of time. Sometimes, sometimes it takes months, sometimes years to catch up to these guys.

But obviously their plan fell apart, and, and they had nothing. They - it doesn't sound like they had any money, any transportation, and they, they just had to go from day to day. So, yes, it was only a matter of time, and, and everybody who was involved in this, all the law enforcement officers did a phenomenal job and the area was saturated. There was over 1300 law enforcement officers up there.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And with that in mind and the fact these guys were out for so long, I mean, do you think it's lucky or do you - what do you think of the fact that no one was hurt in the time - in the amount of time these guys were out?

MCCANN: Well, these guys don't want to draw any attention to themselves when they're running. And obviously if their plan falls apart, they, they've got - every day they have to evolve a little bit more and they certainly don't want to have any eyes on them, so they're, they're trying to fly under the radar, and I, I think eventually somebody - I, I think the likelihood is extraordinarily high that somebody would have gotten hurt encountering them at some point, but for the time being they just - they were just laying low.

BOLDUAN: Sure was.

BERMAN: Well, it's good that, that this manhunt is now over, the nightmare as Governor Cuomo has said -

BOLDUAN: That's right.

BERMAN: - is now over. Gerard McCann, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

MCCANN: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right. So the man who shot and captured David Sweat, veteran New York State Trooper Jay Cook is being called a hero today, and rightly so. This all happened about 16 miles from where escapee Richard Matt was shot and killed on Friday, less than two miles as Kate said from the Canadian border. Sergeant Cook and I think we have a picture of him, you can see him right there on the right, he was alone on routine patrol when he spotted Sweat jogging. So he was out on the open on the road. Cook tried to confront Sweat who took off running across the field.

BOLDUAN: And then the trooper chased of course, chased after him, finally stopping him with two shots before he could disappear into the nearby woods. New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo congratulated Sergeant Cook on that capture.

[11:20:00] ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK GOVERNOR: I said to Sergeant Cook who has two daughters, 16 and 17, I said, well, you go home tonight and tell your daughters that you're a hero. With teenage girls that will probably last 24 hours and then you'll just - if you go back to being a regular dad.

BOLDUAN: That's one part of it. Now, Cook has been with the New York State Police for 21 years and this will be a weekend that he will remember in that long career.

BERMAN: I got to say, everyone up there in that part of the state is going to remember these next few days.

BOLDUAN: Well, yes. Everything were...

BERMAN: I think it's a huge, huge relief.

BOLDUAN: Yes. All of the pressure they were under essentially locked down in their homes.

BERMAN: Sleeping with guns.

BOLDUAN: It's amazing. And it's finally over. Coming up for us, the American economy on edge as another nation sits on the brink of financial collapse. Greece is closing its blanks - banks denying people cash as panic spreads. So what happens now?

BERMAN: Plus, terror on the beach. ISIS inspired terrorists targets tourists on vacation, and we have new warnings in the U.S. about threats around the fourth of July.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Breaking news this morning. U.S. stock markets are down, down 189 points right now. Why? Well, there are huge global jitters. This is almost all the result of worries about the Greek debt crisis. Greece is scheduled to make a debt payment tomorrow but they don't have the money. Just this morning, the prime minister asked the European Union for help in getting that deadline extended.

BOLDUAN: Greece's stock market and banks are closed. The government there is also putting a tough cap on how much cash Greek citizens can take out of an ATM. So what are folks bracing for there and here in the U.S. CNN's International Business Correspondent and host of CNN International Quest Means Business, Richard Quest is joining us live from Athens. And CNN Global Economic Analyst, Rana Foroohar is here as well.

[11:25:00] So Richard, you are on the ground there. You've been kind of - you've been on the street seeing these lines of folks at ATM machines. What's happening there right now? What's the reaction?

RICHARD QUEST, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Dignified, calm, collected with a sincere sense of worry about what happens next. There's - a demonstration is just getting a way - under way behind me which is what you can hear.

There's no sense of crisis or panic because there is a feeling that, yes, there is another week before the referendum takes place, but be under no illusion, Kate, there are difficult decisions that must be taken, and there is no easy way out.

All avenues eventually lead either to more austerity and difficult choices for the Greek people or leaving the single currency, the Euro.

BERMAN: Rana Foroohar, you are with us here. Richard said there's a sincere sense of worry. A sincere sense of worry in Greece. Is there a sincere sense of worry here in the United States? What does it mean to investors here?

RANA FOROOHAR, GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Well, it means a lot. You can see markets are already down today over this. You know, the E.U. is our biggest trading partner. $3 billion a day flows between the E.U. and the U.S. so this affects U.S. companies, workers, it affects our markets. The big worry, frankly, is this is just the first domino to fall. Greece goes out of the Euro zone and then it's followed by other more important countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy. Things would really get bad then.

BOLDUAN: It sounds like it could really get bad. But when you put it in perspective of what kind of the small country that we're talking about, Rana said earlier today that China creates a new Greece every -

FOROOHAR: A new Greece in every six weeks.

BOLDUAN: Every six weeks. I mean, that really puts it in perspective, Richard.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BOLDUAN: So isn't it a little scary when you kind of talk to regular investors, regular folks, that a small country like this can throw financial markets around the world into such turmoil? QUEST: There's no doubt the ability of a small country like this

to create huge waves, we've seen it before, but it's different now because we know that, for example, the Euro - other Euro zone countries have been getting together to make sure that what happens in the buildings behind me, what happens on the streets here, does not have this tremendous domino effect. But what we can't know and Rana may agree with me, what we really can't know is if you put the feet to the fire in anger when the crisis happens, throw every cliche you like in there, will the system hold together? That we just don't know. And in many ways it's a big worry for anybody.

By the way, there's a union demonstration that's just getting under way to my left. There's another demonstration that's under way over on the other side of the square. So across the center of Athens tonight, all sides coming out to say the dignity of Greece is under threat.

BERMAN: And I expect you will see several demonstrations all week or more of that to come. And Rana, Richard earlier said there's no easy way out. There's just hard ways out, but the thing is, is that we don't know which hard way this is going to go yet.

FOROOHAR: That's right.

BERMAN: So you have certainty and inevitable pain here.

FOROOHAR: That's right. And I think that's what really worries the markets and that's why you see them moving up and down. There's a jitteriness because it's unprecedented territory. You know, I was actually covering Europe in 1999 when the Euro was started, and it was an unprecedented experience. You know, you had 18 countries coming together to form this currency. That's never happened before.

BOLDUAN: Right.

FOROOHAR: So nobody knows what happens when it falls apart. For Greece it could mean going back on the Drachma. That could mean, you know, going back to being what it was which is really more of a developing country rather than a, a fully European emerged nation.

BOLDUAN: Can you briefly put it in perspective when we talk about these austerity measures, how painful they actually would be. What the other Euro zone nations are asking for here.

FOROOHAR: Well, really painful, Kate. I mean, this is a country that's seen its economy contract by 25 percent. Those are great depression figures. You know, we haven't experienced anything like this in our memories in the U.S. and these people have been living with that for year after year after year. And that's part of the problem frankly.

There was a window two or three years ago where there could have been a coming together, before things got really painful in Greece, but at some point people threw up their hands and said, look we can't take any more of this. They elected a socialist government and that's another risk too. That if things go badly, you could see the rise of more populist politics, which you've already seen in Europe more right wing and left wing politics and, and that becomes a bigger issue.

BERMAN: But for political considerations, -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BERMAN: - where does Greece turn if everyone else turns their back?

BOLDUAN: Where do they turn?

FOROOHAR: That's right.

BERMAN: Rana Foroohar, Richard Quest, thanks so much to all of you.

BOLDUAN: Thanks guys.

BERMAN: If you can imagine, if you couldn't get your money out of a bank for six -

BOLDUAN: Exactly right.

BERMAN: - days, you would be on the streets protesting.

BOLDUAN: Or when you have a limit of what, $50, $60? People would be on the streets here. That's for sure.

BERMAN: All right. 30 minutes after the hour for us. The prison guard arrested for smuggling tools in raw meat. He is back in court today. Why he says, you'll go become an alcoholic and get a divorce if you work in a prison.