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New Details From Medical Examiner; Former Schoolmate Remembers Gunman; Change Gun Culture; Boehner Proposes Short-Term "Plan B"; NBC Reporter Freed from Syria

Aired December 18, 2012 - 12:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: A shattered town tries to return to some sense of everyday life, knowing that nothing is really ever going to be the same. Most students in Newtown, Connecticut, return to class today, but not those at Sandy Hook Elementary. There is a funeral that is being held for another child today killed in that massacre.

I'm Suzanne Malveaux in Atlanta.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Ashleigh Banfield, live in Newtown, Connecticut.

And this is NEWSROOM'S special coverage, "Newtown Remembers."

Today, grieving families are saying good-bye to a 6-year-old girl, while yesterday two little boys were laid to rest. Connecticut's governor has now taken on the role of comforter as the heartbreaking scene plays out too many times.

MALVEAUX: And the governor is asking people across Connecticut to pause for a moment of silence Friday at 9:30, one week after the shooting that killed those 20 children and six adults at the school. He sent a message to governors around the country asking their states to do the same.

We want to update you on new developments in the aftermath of the tragedy in Newtown. Schools reopen today for the first time since the shooting rampage. More police, extra counselors, of course, were on hand. Sandy Hook Elementary, where the shooting took place, still remains closed. Funeral services are being held today for another six- year-old. Jessica Rekos loved horses and expecting a new pair of cowgirl boots for Christmas. Family members are trying to help her brother understand why he can't play with his best friend.

And a former director of security for Newtown schools is shedding new light on the gunman. He was assigned to keep track of students who were having problems, including Adam Lanza. But he says he never thought of Lanza as a threat.

Ashleigh, tell us about the kind of emotion that you are seeing. Obviously, a lot of people who are -- they are burying their dead. And at same time, trying to move on and give their other children a sense of hope in this community.

BANFIELD: One of the things I've been noticing is surrounding communities. People from surrounding communities, Suzanne, have been coming here just to pay their respects, just to be a part of it somehow, to show that they are with the people of Newtown and that they support them in their grief. It's almost unbelievable the number of people with tears in their eyes just walking down the street.

You can't walk anywhere near where I am right now without encountering someone with a child or two adults walking hand in hand, crying because they've just dropped off flags or teddy bears or candles or origami or some little Christmas ornament with the name of a child. And so we all know -- we all know it's OK to be walking down the street crying. Everyone seems to understand that's what this is all about.

And I just want to let you know also that there's a cafe that I've been frequenting and working in, and I went up to buy a cup of coffee and the woman who was selling it to me said, it's free of charge. Someone called this morning and said that they want to pay for everyone who comes in to the cafe today as a gesture of love.

And then that happened a second time. A second caller anonymously offered to pay for everyone's coffee coming in. And that's just the kind of thing that's happening here. Everybody feels like they're in the same boat and it is a terrible boat to be in.

At the same time, there is this investigation and it is formal and it is serious and it is massive. The investigation into why and how Adam Lanza did what he did on Friday and changed this community and this country forever. Deborah Feyerick is following that part of the investigation. She is live for us as well.

Deb, what's the new information that you're getting, specifically from the medical examiner?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, and we also want to tell you that just a couple of minutes ago, another investigator drove up the long driveway to get back into the thousand to search for more evidence.

But the medical examiner, H. Wayne Carver, is telling HLN's Rita Cosby that, in fact, toxicology tests were done on Adam Lanza. They're trying to determine the kind of medications that he may have been on and the effects of those medications. Also, for the first time officially, the medical examiner saying that Adam Lanza did have Asperger's, but -- that's what he's being told, but they are taking it one step further to see whether, in fact, that was the correct diagnosis. Whether or not in fact there was much more going on inside this young man.

The bodies of the mom and the alleged gunman, Adam Lanza, both of them have undergone autopsies. They have not been released. Nobody has claimed the bodies yet. And nobody will be notified when they are until after the burials. That is at the request of the family.

A couple of more gruesome details, Ashleigh, unfortunately, coming out about what happened inside this home on Friday morning. The medical examiner saying, according to the autopsy report, Nancy Lanza was shot in the head four times as she slept in her pajamas in her bed. Also, the death of the gunman, the alleged gunman, he died by a single shot, also to the head.

Now, the divorce document -- this sort of taking it to the next stage. You know, you look at the divorce document because you're trying to see, OK, was it just some kind of diagnosis of Asperger's or was it something more going on? Well, according to the divorce document, apparently Nancy Lanza was responsible for paying all unreimbursed psychiatric and psychological expenses. Also, she was responsible for picking up the cost of prescription medications. So when it came to her son's mental health, it appears that she really was in charge of making sure that he was getting the right kind of help and the right kind of medications. That's sort of -- according to the divorce document.

You know, she tried so hard to mainstream her son, even though he didn't fit in, even though as a freshman here in Newtown, you know, he was given a school psychologist and school safety officers watched him carefully because, you know, he was so awkward, so gawky, so out of place and anti-social that they were afraid that he would become the victim of some sort of crimes, like bullying. And, in fact, that didn't happen.

And, you know, we can't get away from the fact, Ashleigh, that this is a kid who just fell off the grid about three years ago. There are no records of what he's been doing since 2009 when the last record shows that he was taking classes at a local university, classes like computer science and macro economics and American history. He's described as a genius. But whatever happened in the last three years, boy, something went terribly wrong, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And, Deb, it's haunting to see that photograph that shows Adam Lanza at his most recent state in life before this happened.

Deb Feyerick reporting for us from outside of the Lanza home.

We are all trying to make sense of how this happened. We are all trying to make sense of those eyes, of this story, of this tragedy, how this could happen anywhere, let alone the tiny town. Investigators trying to figure out what was going through his mind. One of the people who may be able to offer some insight is Alan Diaz. He's a former classmate of Adam Lanza, who spoke exclusively to CNN's national correspondent, Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the steady stream of people drawn to this memorial honoring victims, a former schoolmate of the alleged killer.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): When you think of this, does your mind also go to your friend?

ALAN DIAZ, GUNMAN'S FORMER SCHOOLMATE: Obviously it does because, you know, he's a very big part in this event. And I'm not really sure what to think of it. CANDIOTTI: Sadly, he's the reason for it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

DIAZ: Yes.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Alan Diaz may have been as close as anyone could come to being a friend of Adam Lanza when he was a sophomore at Newton High School and Diaz was a freshman in 2008.

DIAZ: Yes, he was a very intelligent person. He really was. It's just like, you know, the way he acted around other people was just very withdrawn and just really quiet.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): A little different?

DIAZ: Yes.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): They were in the high school Tech Club together, spent a lot of time on computers. Adam had his own style of dressing.

DIAZ: He kind of had like the stereotypical nerd look. Like, you know, like khaki pants, belt, tucked-in shirt. He even had like the computer case, or kind of like a briefcase instead of like a backpack like everyone else. He even like had like a little pocket protector that he had pens in.

CANDIOTTI: He doesn't know whether Lanza was bullied. He kept to himself.

DIAZ: We all kind of knew that like, you know, he had problems socially. And we kind of had a feeling that there might have been something wrong with him, but obviously we never asked, we never thought it was our place to do so.

CANDIOTTI: Back then, his schoolmate's mom once invited all his friends to the house to play video games. One was "StarCraft," kind of a war games in space. Another was "WarCraft 3," where as the ad says, survival is a matter of strategy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): The burning shadow comes to consume us all.

DIAZ: "WarCraft 3" was really fun. So, you know, he was really into games and if I recall he actually picked up on "StarCraft" really quickly.

CANDIOTTI: When Lanza left high school and was home schooled, Diaz lost touch, but he ran into Lanza's mother Nancy about two years ago.

DIAZ: I remember her like mentioning that he started going to the shooting range with her and my initial response to that was, I never really imagined Adam one to ever even hold a gun.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Why would -- why do you say that? DIAZ: I don't know. Maybe because like in my mind I don't imagine shy, quiet people, you know, going to a shooting range. I never really can make that association.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Investigators are tracking how often Lanza had been to gun ranges. They don't yet know how many so far. They've proven he's been to target practice about six months ago, and for several years. Mother and son went at least once together. Alan's older sister went to school with the shooter's older brother and she was friends with their mother, who went to her bridal shower last year.

AMANDA D'AMBROSE, GUNMAN'S FORMER SCHOOLMATE: Why her? You know, because she was just -- I -- thank you. It was a shock. She was always a happy, happy person.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Do you now think of him as an evil person because of what he did?

DIAZ: At one point he was a good kid. The events that he did that day may have been evil, but before then he -- he was just another kid.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Until something made him snap.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Newtown, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Been a lot of opinions, op-eds written in the aftermath of this tragedy. Many support more gun control, as well as mental health services. Others actually think there should be more guns as a means of protect themselves. Want to bring in our senior political analyst, David Gergen, who's written an op-ed in cnn.com.

David, first of all, as someone who has advised four presidents, you say that clearly we need a change in our culture, the culture of guns and gun policy. And you say that in order to honor the dead, you've got to have some kind of action. What is the most important thing right now for the president to do?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Seize the moment. The opinion in the country now has shifted in favor of gun safety. We have majorities in two polls, CBS and "The Washington Post"/ABC now saying that we really need stricter laws, stricter enforcement, and, you know, that's -- that's a pretty big shift. As you know, opinions have been shifting away toward more people having guns and sort of the whole idea of, well, a way to solve this problem if everybody has a gun, you can stop the shooter. Well, of course, that just doubles down on the problem and we have a culture in which guns are more available to young people and to that -- then to that approach.

MALVEAUX: And --

GERGEN: Go ahead, please.

MALVEAUX: And, David, of course, you know that the president can't do it alone. He needs cooperation of Congress. You say there are three basic principles that should guide our gun policies. First you say you have to -- you must have a license to own a gun. And the license should not be easy to get. So how difficult should it be? What would be your parameters?

GERGEN: Well, I think the permit system now is full of holes. It's determined at the state level and we have very, very uneven laws. And as you know, Suzanne, you can -- the permit system just is a background check in effect and a waiting period. That's all very helpful. It doesn't really get into whether you know how to use a gun, whether the kinds of things we do to license people to drive. Cars are dangerous, but we let people drive after they get a license once they prove to us that they know how to handle it. And the same thing should be true of guns. We should have a strict licensure approach so we know who has the gun and then you can make adjustments.

You know, with modern technology, you could put in effect a password on a gun so that someone -- if someone picks up your iPad and they don't know your password, they can't get into your iPad. The same thing is true of guns. If you put a password on a gun and someone like Adam didn't have the password, he wouldn't have been able to use it. So, you know, you -- if you license the mother and then made sure that he didn't have access, we might not have had all these dead kids.

MALVEAUX: And you say, second, if you're a civilian, you can't buy an assault gun. There are a lot of folks who answer that and say, well, I'm a hunter, I want to protect my home and I want a weapon here. There are people today who are furious over -- you have Dick's Sporting Goods shop that's now saying that they're not going to sell these assault weapons across the country. And tweets that are coming out here. David, I want you to take a look at this.

MChris1024 tweeting, "this make me not want to shop at Dicks!" Another one saying, "I just called Dicks to cancel my rewards zone membership. Told the guy on the phone if I receive another piece of literature in the mail from them, I will sue them."

I mean people are -- how do you respond to that kind of outrage, to that kind of anger. People feel like they -- they should be permitted to have those weapons?

GERGEN: You and I have been around enough on the Internet to know that if Jesus Christ appeared and gave another sermon on the mount, there would be some people who would attack and express fury about some aspect of it. So, you know, you're going to have that. There's going to be noise in the system.

I think the question for political figures, a question for the nation is, what's the morally right anything to do? And if we don't act now, given what we know about the deaths of these children, and we enable the next person to come along, the next loner whose, you know, mentally deranged to come along and shoot a bunch of kids, we're going to have blood on our own hands. We have -- we will have moral responsibility. We will be enablers if we don't act.

So I think the moment is here. I understand the politics of it. I know the politics are rough as a cop (ph). You know, Democrats fell when they passed an assault weapons ban in the Brady Bill way back in 1994 when Bill Clinton was president, they thought they lost the House of Representatives in large part because of that. And so they've been very nervous about it ever since. But that's what leadership is about. It is about seizing the moment when it's there and moving us to a different way to live.

MALVEAUX: It's a --

GERGEN: And I think you find -- and my argument in this piece on cnn.com was, you have to find meaning in terrible horrors like this. And what we learned from Lincoln was, when he went on the Gettysburg Address, he didn't just talk about -- about the people in the battlefield. He said, words are too little. We have to find -- give new meaning to our national life. And that's the kind of leadership we need.

MALVEAUX: We'll see, David. We'll see if, in fact, they've got the political courage to do that in this administration. Thank you.

GERGEN: I understand. It's courage -- courage is the right word. Thanks, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. Appreciate it.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: It's so interesting to hear you and David Gergen, Suzanne, having that conversation over the gun control debate because there is another big conversation that is reigniting right now and it's the debate over violent video games and whether they lead to actual violence, as well.

So, if you're a parent and this is something that plagues you that you are concerned about, we've got some advice for you coming up in just a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And media violence is a risk factor -- is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Fourteen days and counting to the fiscal cliff. Today, House Speaker Boehner proposed letting tax rates increase only of income of more than a million dollars a year. That is what he is calling a Plan B, a short-term step to avoid what could be massive spending cuts and tax hikes that would actually affect every American starting on January 1st. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: Every income-tax filer in America is going to pay higher rate coming January 1st unless Congress acts. So, I believe it's important that we protect as many American taxpayers as we can and our Plan B would protect American taxpayers who make a million dollars or less and have all of their current rates extended.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Want to bring in our White House correspondent, Dan Lothian.

Dan, so, we know that the president says, look, campaigned on those earning more than $250,000 would not see a tax increase. Now, it's been raised to about I believe it's $400,000. Where are we in the negotiations here?

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, that's where it stands. I think it was a dramatic development overnight when the president did shift from something he had been pushing out on the campaign trail and for the last few weeks, saying essentially that no deal could get done if taxes did not increase on those households making more than $250,000. Now, the president raising that to $400,000.

And I think there was a level of optimism here in Washington that this deal could get done soon. And, now, you have Speaker Boehner with this Plan B, if you will, this second track to avoid some of the effects of the so-called fiscal cliff.

Secretary -- Press Secretary, here, Jay Carney, putting out a statement a short time ago saying in part, quote, "The parameters of a deal are clear and the president is willing to work to reach a bipartisan solution that averts the fiscal cliff, protects the middle class, helps the economy and puts our nation on a fiscally sustainable path, but he is not willing to accept a deal that doesn't ask enough of the very wealthiest in taxes and instead shifts the burden to the middle class and seniors."

And he goes on to say, "The speaker's Plan B approach doesn't meet this test." And it really has been a back and forth because we soon then heard back from Speaker Boehner's office, Brendan Bucks saying in a statement, quote, "The White House's position defies common sense."

What is clear, though, that is both sides here, despite this back and forth and this Plan B, is that both sides say that they're still willing to sit down and work on an agreement, this broader agreement, but a lot of concern as the clock ticks down.

MALVEAUX: So, Dan, it looks like both sides seem to be giving in a little bit, giving up something. Does this look like this could be kind of a political tactic here, the fact that he's going to say there's a Plan B? That it really does position Boehner to go back to his own base and say, you know, look, we tried, we gave it our best effort, and both sides can kind of come out and save face?

LOTHIAN: Well, certainly, Speaker Boehner's looking to put pressure on the White House, but Speaker Boehner, as he goes back to House Republicans, is trying to give them something to buy into, essentially, this proposal and one of the things that he can do is say, look, the president has come off this $250,000 cap, essentially, that he had -- that he held so fast for so long and that's what he's doing in selling this to Republicans.

But, clearly, you know, while it appeared the dear was close and it still may be because a lot of talks are ongoing behind the scenes, this is yet another wrench in this ongoing debate.

MALVEAUX: All right, we'll be following closely. Dan, thank you. Good to see you.

People remembering Hawaii's senator, Daniel Inouye. He died yesterday of respiratory complications in Washington, D.C. He was a World War II veteran who received the Medal of Honor. After winning nine consecutive terms, he was the longest serving member of the Senate. He was also a member of the Watergate committee that resulted in the resignation of President Nixon. He was just 88.

Who owns rights to all of those pictures that you're posting on those photo-sharing websites? Well, if you post your photos on Instagram, the company says it doe, actually.

So, a change to the company's private policy basically says that your personal pictures can now be used in online ads. You don't even get a dime. Instagram insists that you still own the actual pictures, but it is taking the commercial rights starting January 16th. Almost 100 million people are using this photo-sharing service.

BANFIELD: Suzanne, as we're reporting, the news has come in that five of our colleagues in the media, American media, from NBC were held captive in Syria and, in an incredible escape, were able to break free from their captors after five days of being held and blindfolded.

We're going to bring you their story, coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Kidnapped, blindfolded, threatened for five days, an American journalist lives to tell that story.

NBC's chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, and his crew were captured last Thursday after crossing into northwest Syria from Turkey.

Now, Engel says he and his crew suffered psychological torture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ENGEL, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, NBC NEWS: Then they took us to a series of safe houses and interrogation places and they kept us blindfolded, bound. We weren't physically beaten or tortured. It was a lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed.

They made us choose which one of us would be shot first. When we refused there were mock shootings. They pretended to shoot Gazi (ph) several times and, when you're blindfolded and then they fire the gun up in the air, it's -- it can be a very traumatic experience.

And, at the end of this, we were being moved to yet another location in the -- around 11:00 last night, local time, and, as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn't expected.

And, so, we were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan. And, as we were driving along the road, the kidnappers saw this checkpoint, started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed.

We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them. We didn't get much sleep.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in Michael Holmes. Michael, you know Richard. You know him well. First of all, it's just -- it's such a relief to see that he is OK, but tell us what kind of journalist he is and what he's experiencing because I know you have -- you've faced a lot of situations similar in Iraq and Afghanistan.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, he's a good guy. I mean, we bump into each other like all the sort of war correspondent club, if you like. I bumped into him in Afghanistan. I bumped into him in Iraq on multiple occasion. He's one of those guys who's seen as, you know, pretty fearless, gets in there, gets his hands dirty, as we like to say, gets in amongst the weeds.

And, you know, this sort of thing, sadly, it can happen. I mean, we've had our own people in Syria and, you know, it's one of those things, you know? If you get stopped by some random group and taken and kidnapped. You know, all my time in Iraq, you know, I went there 13 times. I was more worried about kidnap than I was about roadside bombs and firefights with the military because they invariably did not end well.

And this was -- in a way, they were lucky. If they'd been kidnapped by some hard-line jihadist group or something, that may have ended badly for them, too. They were lucky in that they were kept alive. They were lucky in that they hit that roadblock and they were so lucky that during that firefight they weren't somehow hit. It's just an extraordinary tale of escape and, yeah, luck.

MALVEAUX: Tell us about the preparation because I know, whenever you go into a warzone, you and I have both have taken classes, about five days of so-called "war school" where they actually game out some of these scenarios. But you've had extensive training and you know you have a game plan before you go in.

HOLMES: Yeah. In hostile-environment training and that covers a whole bunch of things from, you know, battlefield medical treatment to armaments and, also, kidnapping and basically they give journalists a feel, a sense of what it would be like.

So, you get a preparation for that, if you like, but nothing's going to prepare you for the real thing, of course. You can do all the prep you like, but went that actually happens to you -- you know, I think you just have to go along with it. You can prepare, but you can't prepare really.

That would have been an absolutely terrifying incident for those guys, thinking they were going to be killed, mock executions, you know? And they're going to have to decompress.

I would imagine if I were them and, when we were ambushed back in 2004 and my translator and driver where killed in that attack and our cameraman shot in the held and that was a horrible, horrible experience, what we did was we stayed together for the next five days and talked it out amongst ourselves.

The worst they could do is go home now and separate ways and all of that. Stick it out together, have a bit of chat and decompress because ...

MALVEAUX: How did you get through that?

HOLMES: With the guys and, you know, talking it through with them and our security guy who was with us that day and basically saved our lives.