Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Mother Of Freed American Speaks Out; American ISIS Fighter Killed In Syria; FBI Analyzing Alleged New Audio Of Shooting

Aired August 27, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We now have that picture of when they reunited yesterday, Peter Theo Curtis and his mother Nancy, who has been through so much. I just cannot imagine the (INAUDIBLE) he will have and how many times he thought about that over the last two years.

Our thanks to Miguel Marquez in Cambridge. Now before they reunited Nancy Curtis spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper about what it was like to hear her son's voice for the first time in nearly two years.

Remember, the family did not know exactly where he was or his condition or whether they would ever see him again. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": Nancy, first of all, just congratulations. I'm so happy for you. Can you take me back to that moment when you first learned that your son had been freed?

NANCY CURTIS, MOTHER OF PETER THEO CURTIS (via telephone): I got a call from the FBI agent who has been working with us the whole time. She flew -- she flew to the Middle East, and she called me and said, I'm standing on the Golan Heights with your son by my side.

And he wants to talk to you, but he needs some time to compose himself. That was all she needed to say. I knew that he was healthy and safe, and it was a huge relief.

COOPER: Did you know that moment was coming? Did you know that this was in the works?

CURTIS: Yes, I knew that the agent had gone to the Middle East about a week previously, so we had been waiting for that call, but, you know, it was -- it was a very, very long wait.

COOPER: What is this moment like? I mean, after waiting and, you know, so many ups and downs and not hearing for so long?

CURTIS: This is --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. I think we lost that interview, but you can hear the joy in her voice over the knowledge that her son was OK. Again, that conversation was before she actually saw him, but after she had spoken to him after she had been through so, so much and when they finally did reunite, that image is just priceless.

ALIYSN CAMEROTA, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Can't imagine what she went through. Remember, James Foley, was killed while her son was in captivity, so she thought he would be coming home, but she never knew until the actual moment that you saw where she had her arms around him that it was going to work.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and to know that she has been befriended by the Foleys, who are dealing with their grief and sorrow right now. It's a club that, unfortunately, more and more people are joining, missing loved ones overseas. Shall I give you a look at headlines right now, guys?

It's 32 minutes past the hour. Here we go, breaking news, Russia is firing over the border into parts of Eastern Ukraine, this according to Ukraine's defense counsel.

Officials say Russians and militants have seized villages in that region. We're going to keep an eye on this. A new cease-fire with no expiration date is under way meanwhile and holding between Israel and Hamas. This agreement reopens border crossings and expands Gaza's fishing zones.

The Pentagon says the U.S. Coast Guard was forced to fire off a warning shot at an Iranian sailboat in the Persian Gulf. U.S. military officials say it began when the Coast Guard vessel approached the sailboat. The crew on board that sailboat pointed a machine gun at them so kind of a situation there that you don't have to have to encounter.

CAMEROTA: Indeed. All right, thanks so much, Michaela.

Now to this week's "Human Factor." A filmmaker turned the camera on himself in multiple sclerosis changed his life. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As a child, Jason Dasilva loved making home movies. He was 18 when he made his first film and 25 when he was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis.

JASON DASILVA, FILMMAKER WITH MS: All of a sudden I was walking slow up and down the subway steps and kind of walking like I was drunk during the day.

GUPTA: MS is a disease where the body's immune system attacks the central nervous system, damaging or destroying nerve fibers. The independent filmmaker traveled the world making nine films and then Dasilva turned the camera on himself, documenting the ravages of his disease and the struggle that people with disabilities have living in New York City.

DASILVA: We're not super human. People with disabilities shouldn't be asked to do the impossible. GUPTA: In the seven years it took to make the movie "When I Walk," which aired on PBS, Dasilva went from walking to using a walker to a wheelchair and now a motorized scooter. His vision has started to deteriorate. His hands curl making it impossible to hold a camera.

Passionate about making the city easier to negotiate for people with disabilities, he and his wife created a map of all the places in the city that are wheelchair accessible.

DASILVA: Some of the things I'm doing is actually making a difference. That's what keeps me going and that's how we can stay positive.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: The first American has been killed fighting for ISIS, but more than 100 are still believed to have joined the fight in Syria. What's causing Americans to join a terrorist cause? Our counterterrorism analyst is going to weigh in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: We're learning more this morning about an American who died in Syria while fighting for ISIS terrorists. Douglas McCain is believed to be the first American killed fighting for ISIS, but he's only one of at least 100 Americans who have traveled to Syria to join other militant and terror groups fighting there.

What's the latest evidence of the threat that Islamic extremists could pose here at least in the United States. Want to bring in CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official, Philip Mudd.

Phil, thanks so much for being with us. You know, we knew, we'd been told there were as many as 100 Americans fighting in Syria right now. That was known, but now we have a name. Now we have a story. So what do investigators now do with that information, do with that story, do with that name?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Boy, at this point to me, it's the most fascinating piece of the intelligence business, that is, we're focused on a name and how this guy got there and what happened to his family and how he was radicalized.

But the interesting story here to me is the parallel life I lived at the bureau and at CIA, and that is once you have a name at the middle of the spider web, your initial question is what is the extent or is there a conspiracy around him?

Who radicalized him? Who did he radicalize? And how did he get the money to get there? Where did he get the documents? Who facilitated his travel through a place like Turkey? The first question you have is a ticking time clock, and that is was there a conspiracy around him that allowed this to happen. And it takes a while to prove the negative, that is, to prove if he got operated sort of in a solitary fashion, that there was no sort of circle of support around him. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes right now.

BERMAN: You know, is there a script here? How does this usually work if we can say that? Who recruits whom, a disaffected youth who seeks out a group like ISIS or does ISIS have tentacles that can reach down to people like this?

MUDD: I think it's simpler than that. You have to go back to the mindset of people like this, and unfortunately, we've seen this mindset in other circumstances like Somalia going back six, seven, eight years in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

We saw the first American suicide bomber come out. He was a kid from Minneapolis. The story is similar and that's part of the tragedy for American families because in my experience most of them don't know, like in this case, that their kid has gone.

What happens is it's not as simple as somebody joining an organization that's responsible for beheading a journalist. It's an emotional appeal that says, you're responsible to the faith, especially by the way, John, among people who are converts.

Sometimes they are more zealous than people who grew up in the religion. When you start to get it out an appeal to the faith. You see images of dead women and children and the appeal is you're responsible to your community.

Why don't you come out and support a group that defends people like women and children who are dying, and that appeal can be very visceral and very powerful.

BERMAN: If we see this one guy, if we see Douglas McCain, do we then know definitionally that there is someone else, that he must have spoken to someone here in the United States. There's someone else who we should be concerned about right now in Minnesota, in San Diego, that helped him get where he went?

MUDD: We don't know that, but I think there's a couple of basic questions we've got to ask. The first is, were there people who were aware of his radicalization, not necessarily people that are part of the conspiracy.

But, if you will, sort of two steps out, people who sort of knew something was happening, and is there a way to reach those people in the future in communities so that they come forward and speak because you can't expect law enforcement to find people like this.

The second is what you're asking, John. It's hard to figure out what the answer is, and that is along the way it might have been two years ago, were there people who brought him into the circle, people who told him, who he could contact, for example, to get travel facilitated through a place like turkey to get to Iraq or Syria? That's hard to figure out because, again, you've got to prove a negative. You've got to ensure that who he called, who he e-mailed and spoke to among a circle of friends or co-conspirators over the covers six months or a year or two years, that none of those people knew. That's going to take a while to figure out.

BERMAN: All right, take me to Syria now. What does it tell you that ISIS had him fighting in Northern Syria against other rebel groups there and not, you know, perhaps training him in some field to come back to the United States to commit acts of terror here?

MUDD: We focus, John, on the stories, the sort of highlight stories of kids who are suicide bombers back home or who come back to a place like New York and try to build backpack bombs. That's at the extreme of terror circles.

There are very few operatives who go out overseas and come back home for operations like that. Unfortunately, most of what I witnessed at the bureau and at the agency was kids who are sort of radicalized in the United States. They go overseas. They don't know what they are going to find.

They become part of a closed circle, almost like a cult, and most of them become cannon fodder for the organization, like this kid. We saw this in Afghanistan. We've seen it in Somalia. They don't come home to explode a bomb in Times Square. They die in a trench in some place overseas. Their lives are lost, and we never even know about it.

BERMAN: Generally speaking, is that what they want to do, these kids who go over there from the United States or even Britain? Do they want to be fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, or do they want to bring that fight back home?

MUDD: No, most of them are going overseas to fight the immediate fight. They are inspired emotionally to go and defend the faith. They are not inspired to go and behead somebody. They are not inspired to do something that among extremists sometimes is viewed at the fringe.

That is a terrorist bombing in a place like London and New York. They want the immediate gratification of going to defend the faith, to defend innocent men, women and children in villages and places like Syria so when they get on the ground, their question is, you know, how do I get into the fight?

Unfortunately, these people will be untrained like this guy and most of them will die. Most what have I witnessed for American youth going overseas, they never come home again.

BERMAN: The American intelligence said they knew this guy was there. Is there any more they could have or should have done to find him, reach him, to get him, or is it at that point all about protecting the United States from him?

MUDD: Boy, it's all about protecting. Once these people leave their families, their families as I mentioned earlier don't know, how are you going to reach the guy? Often they are not speaking to their families, and they are in a place among people where psychologically they are isolated.

They are not going to respond to an appeal. I think the question at that stage is really tough, and it gets into the business I was in. How do you talk to neighboring countries to ensure they have border control, to pick people like this up?

How do you ensure that if somebody like this tries to get on an airplane you're aware of it, you can watch him and pull him aside, and, obviously, this man was on a watch list.

And, unfortunately, what do you do if you find that this fellow comes back home and starts radicalizing other people? What do you do with him? Do you arrest him? Do you try to put him in a halfway house?

When you're dealing with this many people, 100, 200 Americans, I think by the way the number 100 is probably underestimated. That problem about how to follow these people is really difficult.

BERMAN: Interesting questions. Philip Mudd, thank you so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

MUDD: Yes. Sure, thank you.

BERMAN: All right. Coming up, new alleged audio of the Michael Brown shooting obtained by CNN is with the FBI. How does it compare to witness statements? We're going to have a look at where this case stands.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Just one day after Michael Brown was laid to rest, demonstrators were back on the streets of Ferguson and St. Louis, Missouri. Protests were peaceful as they come at the same time the FBI is evaluating that new audio recording obtained by CNN allegedly of the moment that Brown was shot.

CNN's Sara Sidner is live in Ferguson, Missouri, for us. What was the response there, Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, a lot of people are listening to that and it's certainly raising eyebrows. We can tell you that the tensions that have flared here for more than two weeks have really quieted down.

What you're now seeing, you know, are different kinds of protests throughout Ferguson, of people that are trying to do this peacefully, and trying to get some sort of concrete change that can happen following the shooting of Michael Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice-over): Supporters wanting justice for Michael Brown hit the streets once again. At the federal courthouse, gun protesters making their way through police, demanding that the federal authorities look into potential human rights violations.

This, as new potential evidence surfaces, the FBI is currently dissecting a series of alleged gunshots caught on tape during an online video chat. CNN hasn't been able to confirm its authenticity, but audio experts say it's six shots, then a 3-second pause, followed by four more shots.

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It doesn't really contradict or fit into any of the narratives that have been created so far.

SIDNER: Listen to what witnesses told CNN about the fatal shot fired by Officer Darren Wilson. His friend, Dorian Johnson, suggesting Wilson was shooting, then Brown turned then Wilson fired again.

DORIAN JOHNSON, WITNESS: I see the officer proceeding after my friend, big mike, with his gun drawn, and he fired a second shot, and that struck my friend, Big Mike, and at that time he turned around with his hands up, beginning to tell the officer that he was unarmed and to tell him to stop shooting but at that time, the officer was firing several more shots into my friend and he hit the ground and died.

SIDNER: Piaget Crenshaw recorded the scene from this angle and also mentions a pause.

PIAGET CRENSHAW, WITNESS: Michael then turned around like almost in awe, like how he had just gotten shot that many times, so he looked down and then he just tried to put his arms up and once he put his arms up, the police shot his face and he just went down.

SIDNER: Listen again to the shots recorded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are pretty. I'm just going over some of your videos. How could I forget?

SIDNER: The only account from Officer Wilson himself comes from a friend who calls herself "Josie," who called into a radio station. Police sources have confirmed to CNN her account is similar to what Wilson has reported.

"JOSIE": He stands up and yells "freeze." Michael and his friend turn around and Michael starts taunting him, "What are you going to do about it? You're not going to shoot me." And then he said all of a sudden he started to bum-rush him.

He just started coming full speed so he just started shooting and he just kept coming. It was unbelievable and then so he finally ended up, the final shot was in the forehead.

O'MARA: If there was a confrontation, then the last four shots may have been justified. If there wasn't, if Mike Brown says "I surrender, I'm sorry" and he shoots him, that's an execution.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Now we have yet to hear a full official account from police about their investigation. We do know that the members of a grand jury have been selected, but officials say it may not be until October before they can see all the evidence and decide whether or not to indict Officer Wilson -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: That is a long time. Sara Sidner, thanks for the update.

BERMAN: All right, the name, Douglas McCain, will be a dark part in American history, the first American to die fighting for ISIS. The family members said the young man they knew wouldn't go fight for the enemy. We'll have their reaction and speak to an official at the Pentagon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The enemy within. New details on the American killed while fighting for ISIS. Friends and family now speaking out. Why did he turn to terrorism and how real is the threat of radicalized Americans? We'll speak live to the Pentagon and Senator John McCain.

CAMEROTA: Breaking overnight, finally home, the American, Peter Theo Curtis, now back with his family in Boston, after two years of being held hostage in Syria. We have the photos of the emotional homecoming.

PEREIRA: The 3-second pause, new questions this morning about the new audiotape allegedly from the moments Michael Brown was shot and killed. Why did Officer Wilson fire then pause and fire again?

BERMAN: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, August 27th, 8:00 in the east. I'm John Berman joined by Alisyn Camerota, who just moments ago said she's had enough of me.

CAMEROTA: I'm saying hello to you.

BERMAN: Chris and Kate are off this morning. We have breaking new details this morning about the American killed fighting alongside ISIS terrorists. Douglas McCain was killed by rival militants in Syria. This comes as the United States considers a counter-offensive to bring down ISIS with fears mounting over the quick spread of that extremist group.

We want to get more now from CNN's Michelle Kosinski live at the White House. Michelle, this morning there has to be great concern.

MICHELLE KOSINKSI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, and now that the administration has authorized surveillance flights over Syria, and considers what options might be next leading up to potentially air strikes.

We see how ISIS, this barbaric terrorist group, affects the U.S. in more ways than one. With now this American raised in Minnesota, being killed fighting with ISIS inside Syria.