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New Details on Tennessee Gunman; No Motive Known for Tennessee Shooting; D.A. Discusses Details of Tennessee Shooting Investigation; Shooter Not in Terror Database; 2 Shooting Victims Identified; Abdulazeez's Mosque Reacts to Shooting. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 17, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Armed for war on U.S. soil. Brand new information about the gunman who killed four Marines in Tennessee. Where did he recently travel? Was his father on a terror watch list?

Plus, described as a devout Muslim, do his blog postings give us any clues about his motives? His reason for using an A.K.-47 style gun to ambush the military

And the Marines, they protect the country only to lose their lives right here at home. Their stories and the loved ones left behind.

I'm John Berman. This is CNN's special live coverage of the tragedy in Chattanooga.

We are piecing together every new detail on the shooting spree that left four Marines dead in Chattanooga. CNN has just confirmed that one of the victims was Marine Skip Wells. He graduated from a high school in Marietta, Georgia, in 2012. He was a history major at Georgia Southern University. Another of the slain Marines identified on social media as Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Sullivan. The Massachusetts native survived two tours of duty in Iraq and earned a purple heart. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker posted on Facebook, quote, "Terror comes home to Massachusetts."

Also new this morning, a time line. The FBI says it was 10:45 a.m. when heavily armed Mohammed Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire at a military recruiting center. It all ended within 30 minutes. Authorities now confirm that Abdulazeez was shot dead by a Chattanooga police officer.

The big unknown right now, motive. Authorities say Abdulazeez had no known ties to international terrorist organizations, no red flags of possible radicalization.

Let's go to Victor Blackwell at the site where the four Marines were killed.

Victor, what's the scene this morning?

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the scene here 24 hours after this rampage began, the FBI evidence response team still here taking photographs, collecting evidence. That's the physical part of the investigation which certainly will be wrapped up as the forensic element, the intelligence end of this investigation will continue.

As you mentioned, John, according to a law enforcement source, Mohammed Abdulazeez's name did not show up any U.S. Database of terror. When you go to former classmates and you put his name and terror or terrorism in the same sentence, they see no correlation. They describe someone who was smart and humorous. A former coach saying that he was religious but not radical. You think on one hand there was this arrest for DUI back in April and the most devout Muslims don't drink alcohol, but also we look to these blog posts. One on July 13th. And let me read it for you. I think we can put it up on the screen. "As Muslims, we often do this. We have a certain understanding of Islam and keep a tunnel vision of what we think Islam is. What we know is Islam and everything else is not. And we don't have the appreciation for other points of view and accept the fact that we may be missing some important parts of the religion."

Now, we know that federal authorities are looking into this blog. They are aware of it. But right now there is no hard confirmation that Abdulazeez is the author of these posts, but in addition to that they're looking into a travel to the Middle East. This was someone who was born in Kuwait, who had Jordanian citizenship. He and his family members recently a naturalized U.S. Citizen. All this coming together to answer that difficult question, why.

BERMAN: Victor Blackwell, we just got word from Kuwait, interior ministry officials there, that he had been in Kuwait as recently as 2010. Had then traveled on to Jordan at the same time.

BLACKWELL: We heard from a coach last night, a wrestling coach who worked with him, that he had been gone for a big part of the last year, so that international travel, that will be key over the next several hours in this investigation. Victor, you also mentioned the arrest report. Inside that arrest report people say he smelled of marijuana. There was the odor of marijuana, and he claimed, this young man did in the spring, that he had been snorting crushed caffeine pills, which is interesting.

BERMAN: Victor, what else are you learning about the victims? The two Marines identified now that were killed in this attack.

BLACKWELL: Right at the top you mentioned the latest victim that we've learned, Marine Skip Wells, graduated from a Georgia high school in 2012. That puts him at 20, maybe 21 years old. We're learning that his mother recently returned from a vacation at one of the -- also there is Marine Thomas Sullivan of Massachusetts, another of the four victims killed at that naval reserve center. His brother, who owns a bar, they are also having a very difficult time with that. An American flag hanging outside of that bar. As we know that people in this community, people who possibly knew the people who were hit by some of these bullets, we know one person was injured here. If we can widen the shot here. And there are people coming every hour or so bringing flags and flowers and notes and some singing. Some saying prayers here at the scene of this terrible, heinous act that happened here in Chattanooga yesterday -- John?

[11:05:34] BERMAN: Victor Blackwell for us at the scene of one of the shooting sprees in Chattanooga. Thanks so much.

Want to bring in justice correspondent, Evan Perez.

Evan, you have more, new information on this investigation.

EVEN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, one of the things that is really on the minds of investigators is to try to determine what the state of mind of the shooter was. And we know for instance that his family has said that he was religious, but wasn't terribly devout. So the question is what happened? What happened in the last few months, perhaps in the last few weeks, even -- And we know from police reports that he was arrested in April for driving while intoxicated. And according to the police report, he was driving erratically, acting lethargic, and spurring his speech. You mentioned some of that. He smelled of marijuana and alcohol. That doesn't fit the picture of what we have seen in some of these attacks before. You see people who are typically very religiously devout and alcohol is definitely not something they would be touching anytime recently. So that adds to the puzzle really that the FBI is trying to resolve. Another thing that is being actively investigated is the question of how he obtained this A.K.-47 style rifle that he used to carry out this very lethal attack. This is a very powerful weapon, and at the press conference late last night, the FBI mentioned that one reason why they're withholding some details about the weapons, and they said he had weapons, not just one, one reason they say they're withholding some of that information is because they're working on perhaps looking to prosecute someone. So that's the question, who helped him obtain this firearm, were there any crimes committed. The FBI will pursue that if they find evidence of it.

BERMAN: Tracing those weapons back right now, I imagine that will happen very, very quickly.

Evan Perez, thanks so much. I know there's more information we're expecting soon. We'll check back in with you shortly.

Want to discuss the details on the investigation that we're just learning.

Joining us now is the Hamilton County district attorney, Neal Pinkston.

Mr. District attorney, thank you so much for being with us.

NEAL PINKSTON, HAMILTON COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY (voice-over): Absolutely.

What can you tell us about the investigation as it stands right now? We just heard from our justice reporter, Evan Perez, more about this arrest that happened in the spring, this young man, this shooter was pulled over, arrested for DUI. He smelled of marijuana and apparently had some crushed caffeine pills. Was he under the influence? Did you test him? PINKSTON: He was arrested for DUI. His blood test, one for alcohol

and one toxicology for drugs, and those aren't completed yet from the TBI. I don't know what the toxicology test would show. I wouldn't be able to tell you at this time.

BERMAN: But at a minimum, he did smell of marijuana and had the white --

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PINKSTON: -- according to the affidavit, yes, that's correct.

BERMAN: And he claims they were caffeine pills. Right now, a lot of focus on a possible motive. What might have caused this man to open fire at these military centers killing four Marines? Where does the investigation stand right now?

PINKSTON: It stands with the FBI leading in conjunction with the ATF and local and state agencies are cooperating and helping them. Like any investigation, they keep an open mind and they don't discount anything and if they get a chance to do their work and they may have a lot more answers later on than they do right now because it is a long process and there's a lot of information to learn but also to figure out where this individual has been for the past, you know, past several months.

BERMAN: Last up, where this individual has been for the last several months is one of the key questions. We learned from Kuwaiti officials that as recently as 2010 he had been in Kuwait where he was born and also traveled there to Jordan where he is of Jordanian ethnicity or at least his family had lived there for some time before hand. Do you have any more concrete information about any travels within the last year?

PINKSTON: No, sir, I do not.

BERMAN: One of his wrestling coaches, somebody he worked with, said he had been gone for a big chunk of that time. Clearly, finding that out will be crucial.

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BERMAN: Go ahead.

PINKSTON: Trying to confirm that is always a difficult process.

BERMAN: And will require the assistance of foreign countries. That's one of the things that makes it more complicated.

Yesterday, there were pictures at the house, at the house where this man had grown up, and we saw an image of a woman being led from that house apparently in handcuffs. Can you give us any information about who she is, if she's still in custody, and why she was taken away?

[11:10:00] PINKSTON: I don't know her identity. I was contacted late last night by a local defense attorney speaking on behalf of some family members of Mr. Abdulazeez and wanting to get in touch with the FBI but as far as who she is, I am not aware of that information.

BERMAN: CNN spoke to Governor Bill Haslam this morning, and he was talking about one of the truly frightening things here is that this man, this shooter, was not on any watch list, hadn't been identified as someone of interest over the last several months or years.

I want to listen to what the governor said.

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BILL HASLAM, (R), GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE: Well, I think the concerning thing here is this is somebody that wasn't on anybody's radar. There were no set of circumstances where people said, OK, we need to be particularly wary about this individual or this circumstance, and I think that's maybe what's the most concerning to law enforcement and then to people in positions like mine is. There was nothing that would predict this could have happened.

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BERMAN: He came from nowhere. That's what you're hearing from state officials, to a certain extent, federal officials as well. Based on your conversations with people in the community, what are they saying about this guy? I heard he was described to me as a country guy who liked to drink beer and watch football.

PINKSTON: One thing I will say is yesterday was a really bad day for the city and the county, but there are a lot of veterans here. There are a lot of tough, strong people, and they're wondering all these questions and answers just like everybody else, but I think we're resilient and tough and going to be able to figure it out in time and move forward.

BERMAN: And that's where our thoughts are today with, with the people of our city, with the families of the Marines who were murdered yet.

District Attorney Neal Pinkston, thank you for being with us. We wish you luck in this investigation.

PINKSTON: Yes, sir. Have a good afternoon.

BERMAN: We're getting new pictures of the Islamic center this gunman attended, including a new sign on the door. Very interesting what it says today.

Plus, more on his travel overseas. A reported trip to the Middle East, perhaps very recently. Who was he meeting with? Would this have been flagged?

Plus, we're now hearing now from loved ones, the family members of those Marines killed. You're about to hear the emotional and honest words of a man who just lost a friend.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of all people, him, he's like one of the nicest guys you ever meet and you never expect something like this to ever happen to somebody like that.

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[11:16:11] BERMAN: Getting new information about the shooter in Tennessee. Friend and teachers who knew him said they're shocked at what they're hearing. He was not on any U.S. database of suspected terrorists. So what made him do this? Listen to an FBI official.

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ED REINHOLD, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: We're looking at every possible avenue, whether it was terrorism, whether it was domestic, international, or whether it was a simple criminal act.

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BERMAN: Want to bring in CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official, Phil Mudd.

Phil, some of the latest information and latest focus is on possible travel overseas. We know he was in Kuwait as recently as 2010 and then went on to Jordan. He was born in Kuwait. He is Jordanian also. So maybe he was just visiting relatives. A coach told us last night he thinks he spent much of the last year abroad and there are media reports he could have been gone for months at a time overseas. How significant is this travel do you think?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: The last year would be significant to me. Five years ago would be far less significant unless he met someone he continues or continued to communicate with. The answer is simple, John, and that is the rate of radicalization in cases like this where you have an individual, doesn't appear to have co-conspirators, can be measured typically in my experience in weeks or months, not in years. So there was not a five-year fermentation process where this kid was trying to figure out what to do. On the other hand, what he did over the last year to me is critically important. Who he talked to, personally, and who he talked to on e- mail.

BERMAN: So Jordan, Jordan is one of the countries where we believe he traveled at least in 2010. Possibly within the last year. What kind of groups exist in Jordan? What kind of individuals exist in Jordan that could have radicalized him if that happened?

MUDD: If you look at both the al Qaeda phenomenon from the early 2000s and the more recent phenomenal of is, you have both of those in Jordan. It's whether he met somebody who then continued to communicate with him now. I'm going to guess, John, that the feds already know something about what his motivation was because on those raids you're looking at Facebook, Twitter, you're taking down his e- mail contacts. It's hard for me to believe that someone would an electrical engineering degree who is otherwise sane did this entirely on his own without communicating with another individual. Most of these cases, there is somebody who helped trigger this act and the feds are already figuring out who that somebody was. Maybe it's somebody he met in Jordan or Kuwait but they must have been communicating with him relatively recently.

BERMAN: There most likely is an electronic footprint that they're uncovering at this point.

I want to stay on the foreign travel for one minute, Phil. Jordanian intelligence, they have a robust intelligence service and system. How much help do you imagine they're providing right now?

MUDD: I think they'll be really helpful on this and they'll try to cooperate. My experience with them is that they're terrific. I think it would be hard to retrace his footprints from five years ago unless you can identify the places he stayed or pick up from his e-mail traffic whether he maintained an account that goes back five years. The interesting question to me would be the recent travel this year and whether there's phone or e-mail activity from this year that you can trace to Jordan. That is a hot trail that to me would be the priority. I want to know what happened in 2015 that links to Jordan and the second step would be what happened in 2010 because that rate of radicalization, it's just not five years long. There's something that happened here recently.

BERMAN: What about the weapons, Phil? How important is tracing the weapons right now? Evan Perez says he expects there could be arrests coming soon on that front. If you have someone who has intentions, terrorist intentions, how hard is it for that person to get weapons here in the United States?

MUDD: Shouldn't be very difficult if he's not on a watch list, he hasn't committed a federal crime. I think the tracing of the weapons to me, my business -- people on the outside in the media focus on events, terrorist attacks. My business when I was at the CIA and the FBI is a people business. The weapons are going to tell you did he acquire weapons from someone who was part of a conspiracy or did know there was a conspiracy afoot. It's not just tracing the weapons. It's tracing the people who provided the weapons.

[11:20:39] BERMAN: It's telling a story.

MUDD: One last comment, John. This is going to be brutal, so stick with me. This guy had an engineering degree. He used a weapon that minimized casualties. Four people is a tragedy. But if he thought about this for years, he could have come up with a weapon that killed a lot more people. That tells me, and this is supposition, by buying a weapon, he wasn't sitting there over the course of years saying, how do I devise a device that can maximize casualties. Something happened recently where he just wanted to go out and do it.

BERMAN: That is part of what they will be piecing together. An interesting thought. We'll talk more about that going forward.

Appreciate it. Phil Mudd, thanks so much.

Our investigative correspondent, Drew Griffin, just visited the Islamic center that the gunman attended. He joins us live next. Plus, military sites on high alert across the country. What about the

strip malls, the shopping centers where so many of these recruitment centers are? How vulnerable are they? This is CNN special live coverage.

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[11:25:03] BERMAN: The Pentagon is expected to release all the names of the four Marines killed during the shooting rampage in Chattanooga. CNN has identified two, Skip Wells from Georgia. Family and friends have posted tributes to Wells on social media. And Thomas Sullivan, a gunnery sergeant from Massachusetts who served two tours of duty in Iraq.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Father who is so good to us --

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BERMAN: The Chattanooga community is holding special vigils and prayer services to honor the lives lost.

CNN's Alexandra Field joins us now to talk more about the victims, four Marines.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And we know who of them now, who have been publicly identified. People mourning from Georgia to Massachusetts and well beyond that. We have learned Skip Wells was one of the Marines killed. He graduated from high school in 2012. He had recently taken a trip with his mother to Disney world. She put out a statement about her son saying this about her son, that he died doing what he loved for his country and also for his family.

We also heard from a friend of his who talked about this man who he had known since the fourth grade.

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UNIDENTIFIED FRIEND OF MARINE SKIP WELLS: He was a real genuine guy. I mean, he had a real caring spirit, funny dude. I mean, I know throughout high school, I can't remember all the way back to elementary school but I know in high school, man, during band, that boy had me cracking up, man. He was just a funny guy, real caring. Just a real, real nice guy. You couldn't find a nicer guy than him. He loved his country. You know, his mama served in the military. I believe she was a Marine also. So I figured he just wanted to follow in her footsteps. I know he was in ROTC in high school. He loved that. You know, I just think, you know, that's just a calling that he had, maybe just to follow in his family footsteps. His family had a long history of military service. That's probably why he ended up doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FIELD: Also killed in the attack, Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Sullivan. He reportedly served two tours of duty. He earned a purple heart. This is a Springfield, Massachusetts, native. They are honoring their fallen son today lowering flags to half-staff. A spokesperson for the city says his family is trying to come to grips with this right now, as so many people are. We have seen loved ones posting about him on Facebook and social media calling him a hero saying thank you, Tommy, for protecting us. The governor of Massachusetts also writing on Facebook, "Terror comes home to Massachusetts."

BERMAN: I was reading he was running in the Berkshires as recently as last week and now gunned down at a naval office in Chattanooga.

Alexandra Field, thank you so much.

The mosque, where Mohammed Abdulazeez attended, has condemned the shootings and canceled the celebrations which mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan. On its website, the Islamic Society of greater Chattanooga says, "The families of the victims are in our thoughts and prayers. We don't see our community center as a Muslim community. We are Chattanoogans first."

Our Drew Griffin is there live.

Drew, this is a very interesting sign to see at the mosque, and to some people, I think, unexpected.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, well, I mean, there was just no way you could hold the celebrations that would normally be at that mosque today. This is EID. It's a big, big celebratory day in the world of Islam and it should have been packed, filled with families going there. We had one lonely car come in, look at the sign on the door that we took a picture of, and just turn away. That was a man who was looking to say his prayers. But the leader, Issa Bassam, the president of the Islamic Society, also in that statement said we are members of this community. We are Chattanooga first and Chattanooga is mourning today, and he is encouraging all Muslims in his community to join Chattanoogans in mourning the loss of his four Marines. They are also organizing a multi-religious prayer service today in downtown Chattanooga where he is encouraging every single Muslim in this community to come out and show their support and their sadness for this time saying that's more important than anything else they will do.

BERMAN: It's a community, Drew, you get the sense that's in shock. A community that's very reflective today and a community very conscious of how it's being perceived right now in the wake of these murders.

[11:29:57] GRIFFIN: And as we've seen in other cases like this, a community that is most likely introspectively looking at itself to see if there were any signs missed. The president of the Islamic Society said he is meeting with police and the FBI.