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Officer Describes Witnessing Shooting; Multiple Deaths, Suspected Shooter Dead at Navy Yard; U.N. Sec-Gen: Syria Attack Was "War Crime"; Hundreds Trapped by Colorado Flood.

Aired September 16, 2013 - 13:30   ET

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

RENEE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So as you were talking to this man, shots fired from behind him, and he falls to the ground?

CMDR. TIM JIRUS, U.S. NAVY: Probably in front. We were facing our building, 197. So obviously, from the building. Either from the bottom floor -- I thought they came from the fire door or the bottom floor. They could have also come from the roof.

MARSH: What was going through your mind at that time that this man you're speaking to goes down?

(CROSSTALK)

JIRUS: So I understand gunshots at that point because, before, inside the building, they were kind of muzzled. You didn't know what it was. In the alleyway, with the amount of sound reverberating, you knew exactly what it is. Not to mention he's on the ground in front of you bleeding. So I turned, ran to the backside of that building. I want to get something between me and where the shooter is to make sure he couldn't shoot me. So I ended up running around the maintenance building and I ended up jumping a 20-foot fence and ended up over here.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

MARSH: Tim Jirus, J-I-R-U-S.

JIRUS: I don't know about that. I have a cat card (ph). As a military person, we all have badges we have to key the door to get in. That allows us automatic access to the building. Again, if you're a contractor or coming to visit the building, you can walk right in, not walk right in, but you would check in through security.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: Do you feel like it's a secure building?

JIRUS: Not today. It will be interesting to see as this develops, who the shooter is, how he got in, those type of questions answered. Right now, a lot of people are wondering just how safe the building is or how safe the office environment is. We don't know who the shooter or shooters are. If they were related to our job in our can, if they were part of our coworkers. We have no idea.

MARSH: Did it seem is the shooter was randomly shooting at people? I mean, could you pick off -- JIRUS: I couldn't tell.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE). Can you just walk us through your account of this morning, sir?

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: We're going to peel out. What's your first and last name and rank?

JIRUS: First name is Tim, last name is it Jirus, J-I-R-U-S. And I'm a commander in the United States Navy.

MARSH: Thank you.

JIRUS: You're welcome.

(CROSSTALK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: So there you heard commander Tim Jirus -- Tom Jirus -- giving us an eyewitness account of what he just heard.

Renee Marsh conducted the interview. She was there. We'll speak to her in a moment.

BLITZER: Let me get Tom Fuentes, CNN law enforcement analyst, to react.

When you heard Commander Tim Jirus describe what was going on, what did you think, Tom?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST & FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY: Well, I think that the whole key to this is the identification of that shooter. If he had the cat card (ph) as he mentioned which is access to military facilities, they'll be able to quickly identify him. They'd be able to check their system to see when that card was scanned in this morning. They could go and try and find out if he has a parking pass for that facility and what parking lot he might be authorized to park in, and then go back over the videos and see when that car came in and they can tell whether he was alone, were there passengers in the car with him. They'll also be quickly looking for the phone records of the shooter to try to determine within the last especially 24 to 48 hours phone calls, text messages, e-mails, any communication between the shooter or among the shooters if there's more than one to try to identify the others that may be involved, or if you don't see any indication of contacting other people, it may help determine that there really was no other shooters and that he probably was alone. They will also be looking for co-workers, family members, conducting a search at his residence when they identify where that is. So there's a tremendous amount of investigation that centers around that dead shooter.

BLITZER: And I assume they really send in dozens and dozens if not hundreds of law enforcement authorities from the D.C. area, from federal, from military agencies to start reviewing the videotapes, the closed-circuit tv camera images that will be critically important to determining what happened? FUENTES: Right. You'll have base security and NCIS, you know, starting that process. Already probably has been ongoing since early this morning. But you'll have hundreds of other investigators looking at this person's background. The Washington field office of the FBI has over 600 agents. So there's plenty of resources at the disposal of all the agencies, state and local agencies, as well to try to track down who was this person, who was he associated with, were there other friends or colleagues that may be involved in this with him. Is there a problem of -- his co-workers? Could be a case of basically workplace type violence. If you went to the fourth floor of that building, was he looking for a supervisor or somebody he had a grudge with to try to go after a particular person or group of people as well as to being down on the ground and just shooting anybody that went by? So there's a great deal of that kind of investigation and it's going to take time to go through the records, the phones, the videos, interview family, neighbors, co-workers to really get a good identification and profile of this individual that they have on the ground there.

BLITZER: All right, Tom, stand by.

I want to go back to Renee Marsh. She was there. She's there on the scene right outside the U.S. Navy Yard.

You spoke with this commander. Give us the latest what you're hearing over there, Renee.

MARSH: Well, Wolf, you know, so far with all of the people that I've spoken to out here between people who were inside of the building and heard gunshots, perhaps the most compelling story came from the Navy commander. He was standing about maybe three blocks away from all of the activity. Very removed.

And we walked up and talked to him a bit. And it's striking that he was so calm, but again, his story is so compelling. He told us he was in charge of evacuating building 197. That's where this all happened early this morning. So as he was doing the evacuations, he tells me that a maintenance worker came up to him to alert him essentially that something was happening. Of course, the Navy commander was already aware. And during that time, while he was speaking to that maintenance worker, the Navy commander then told me he heard a shot and that shot went through the head of the man he was speaking to. That man fell right before him bleeding. And then at that point, the Navy commander said he ran for his life. Again, I was shaking just to hear that account. But he seemed very, very calm. I would imagine that this all has not had a chance to just sink in just as yet, Wolf. But those are the kind of stories that we're hearing here in the field.

Where I'm standing by National Park, we're with family members who are waiting to meet their loved ones, loved ones who were locked down at the moment that the shots were fired. So they're waiting for those people to be brought here to National Stadium so we can start seeing some reunions -- Wolf?

BLITZER: That's what we want to see. In fact, a lot of worried people because so many people live in that area of the U.S. Navy Yard.

Renee Marsh reporting for us.

We'll take a quick break. Resume our special coverage of the shooting incident. Multiple injuries, multiple fatalities over at the U.S. Navy Yard.

Actually, let's listen in to these eyewitnesses.

MARK HOFFMAN (ph), EYEWITNESS: A guy with a gun and --

ALLISON HOFFMAN (ph), EYEWITNESS: I work in the building across the street. He was dropping me off. He was going to drop me off across the street and so we saw everyone running. So we turned through the parking garage and then we had to ditch the car because it got locked down. We just ran out.

MARSH: Tell me, what did you see and hear? Did you hear any of the gunshots?

MARK HOFFMAN (ph): No.

MARSH: But you saw people evacuate?

ALLISON HOFFMAN (ph): People started running. (INAUDIBLE)

MARSH: You saw people evacuating?

MARK HOFFMAN (ph): Yes.

MARSH: So tell me what that scene was like. What did you see, running, walking, cars?

MARK HOFFMAN (ph): Running and a lot of confusion. People you know, they looked concerned. They were running away from building 197. A lot of people were yelling go to their muster point. That's about it. People were confused.

MARSH: How were you feeling at this point? You're going to work and all of a sudden see people running out of work?

MARK HOFFMAN (ph): It was kind of a fight-or-flight reaction. I had my wife with me. I wanted to keep us safe. So yeah, it was try and find the quickest route out of the Navy Yard. It was hard because there's a lot of people running through streets. I didn't want to mow down people also trying to get out of the yard. It was scary.

MARSH: And so were you in the building when the shooting --

ALLISON HOFFMAN (ph): No, I was riding in with him.

He was driving me to work. He works outside of the yard. He was driving me in.

MARSH: You work in that building?

ALLISON HOFFMAN (ph): I work across the small street from it.

MARSH: What did you see? You saw people kind of running out?

ALLISON HOFFMAN (ph): I saw people running out. They're usually all going in at that time. I knew it didn't look like a fire drill because everyone was terrified looking. We immediately started being confused and scared and shaking. And then he took a little short route through the parking garage. So we thankfully got out quickly.

MARSH: Have you heard anything about the victims or --

ALLISON HOFFMAN (ph): We've heard a lot. I don't really believe anything yet. So I just --- I know some people over in that building so it's scary. But hopefully, everyone is OK. I mean, not -- I know not everyone's OK. So that's horrible. But --

MARSH: What's your first and last name?

ALLISON HOFFMAN (ph): Allison Hoffman (ph).

MARSH: Hoffman?

MARSH: Um-mm.

MARK HOFFMAN (ph): Mark Hoffman (ph).

MARSH: And you all --

BLITZER: More eyewitness accounts of what's going on. Very disturbing information.

We've got a lot more to follow up on. There's a lot of confusion still. Maybe one shooter, maybe three shooters. Very, very unclear. The D.C. police chief, Cathy Lanier, suggesting potentially two shooters may be on the loose right now. Others are pouring cold water on that suggestion.

We'll continue our special coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Joe Johns on the scene for us at the U.S. Navy Yard. Joining us right now.

You're picking up more information on the shooting. What are you learning?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just a little bit, Wolf. It's all about this one shooter or three shooters scenario that's keeping police on their toes.

I had talked to one law enforcement official who was expressing optimism a little while ago that the situation could be secured sometime today. But it's still very much an active situation that law enforcement authorities tell me, and what appears to be an expanded area of concern, even though people allowed to walk on the streets outside the U.S. Navy Yard. U.S. Capitol police are now even advising us that they're telling people that there's no known threat to the U.S. capitol complex, which is frankly several blocks from the Navy Yard. But U.S. capitol police say they're in a heightened state of alert and that enhanced security measures are going to be visible even there.

So authorities are still in very much a state of readiness, even though it's not clear at all whether they've got one shooter or three shooters or two -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Yeah, it's certainly very fluid right now. And we're staying on top of it. But I can confirm that there has been heightened security throughout the D.C. area, including over at the Defense Department, over at the Pentagon and over on Capitol Hill, largely out of what they call an abundance of caution.

Matt Maasdam is joining us right now. He is a U.S. Navy SEAL, not on active duty right now.

A year ago, you worked at the U.S. Navy Yard?

MATT MAASDAM, FORMER U.S. NAVY SEAL & HIGH-THREAT SECURITY EXPERT: That's right. This time last year I was at the yard.

BLITZER: What is it like, the security on a normal day, assuming there's no threat, for example?

MAASDAM: The security is like any other base. They check your I.D. when you come in. And that's pretty much it. As long as you look like who you say you are on I.D., they let you through you.

BLITZER: Do you have to go through magnetometers or anything like that?

MAASDAM: You don't. You don't open your bags or your car. If somebody -- and this is pure speculation -- wanted to bring a gun in in their car and they were going there routinely, this he could do that.

BLITZER: There's parking on the base for those accredited to go on the base.

MAASDAM: That's right.

BLITZER: You just drive in, have a weapon. Then could you walk into -- have you ever been in building 197 --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: -- which is the Naval Sea Systems Command where this incident apparently took place?

MAASDAM: I was close but don't know the number of the buildings by heart.

BLITZER: So you know where the Naval Sea Systems Command building is around there?

MAASDAM: Yes.

BLITZER: So give us your impression, what do you think? I mean, you obviously spent a year on this facility and all of a sudden, it's the center of this what the president of the United States said was a mass shooting.

MAASDAM: Yeah, I mean, it's a storm over there right now. I live about six blocks from the yard. So the craziness has come up into my yard. What people want to do in this situation is they want to move away from the threat. If you see somebody that has a gun, get away from that person as fast as possible.

BLITZER: Would personnel, Navy personnel, other military personnel normally walk around with weapons on a facility like this?

MAASDAM: No, it doesn't happen down there.

BLITZER: Not even a handgun?

MAASDAM: The police would --

BLITZER: The police.

MAASDAM: -- military police. You identify them like any other police officer. It wouldn't be hard, the answer is no.

BLITZER: You're a Navy SEAL. You spent a year on this base?

MAASDAM: I spent six months.

BLITZER: So normally you would be dress the in your uniform and walk around. You wouldn't carry a weapon.

MAASDAM: No, I would not.

BLITZER: If you saw somebody with a weapon, you would assume it was some sort of security personnel?

MAASDAM: If they looked like a police officer, yes.

BLITZER: It's not like walking around Bagram Air Base where everybody has weapons.

MAASDAM: That's right.

BLITZER: In the United States, you don't expect anything like this to happen. It's a Navy Yard. But there are a lot of civilians who work there, as well.

MAASDAM: Mostly civilians.

BLITZER: Mostly civilians.

MAASDAM: And the Navy that's there is H.R. and that kind of Navy. It's not war fighter types for the most part.

BLITZER: You know, what's fascinating, it's right in a really developing part of Washington, D.C., right next to Washington Nationals Park. There are single family homes, apartments going up, retail. It's a really lively part of the District of Columbia now, as opposed to let's say 10 or 15 years ago when it wasn't.

MAASDAM: It's a great part of town. It feels safe all the time. So when I take my kids down there, on Friday nights for concerts and that kind of thing, it's great. I've never been concerned with anything like this.

BLITZER: Matt, you're still in the Reserves, so you could be called up. Right now, you're not on active duty.

MAASDAM: That's right.

BLITZER: Matt Maasdam, thanks for joining us --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: -- with perspective.

We'll take a quick break. Much more of the break news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: We're going to continue to follow all of the breaking news, the shooting at the Navy Yard here in Washington, D.C. There's other news we're following including this. The United Nations secretary- general now says he believes the use of chemical weapons in Syria amounts to, in his words, "a war crime." That assessment from Ban Ki- moon. Part of the U.N. report released today on the August 21st attack inside Syria. The report that the attack was carried out on a relatively large scale, the most significant attack, chemical attack since the attack in Iraq back in 1988, and that surface-to-surface missiles were used in this attack.

Our chief international correspondent, Nick Paton-Walsh, is following all of the developments for us over at the United Nations.

Nick, what are we to take away from this official United Nations report on the chemical attack?

NICK PATON-WALSH, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: First headline you should hear, Wolf, is it confirms sarin gas was used and say, in 85 percent of those tested, some as young as 7 years old, sarin -- the residue of sarin was detected. It also goes on to take about delivery systems used, surface-to-surface missiles. It assessed the trajectory those missiles would have flown in to hit the targets. It even talks about how some of those missiles had Cyrillic writing on them, which is significant because it suggests they may have been of origin from the former Soviet Bloc. Another chilling detail, too, it seems, according to the inspectors, that on the morning, the early morning on which those attacks occurred, between 2:00 and 5:00 in the morning, the weather was such that when the gas landed, it didn't rise up away from its potential victims. It was pushed down, causing it to sink into the basements where many people had run for shelter to try to get away from shelling as normally happens in rebel areas like that, increasing its capacity to kill people there -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Did the U.N. report specifically say that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad was responsible for killing all those people outside of Damascus on August 21st?

PATON-WALSH: No, it didn't. That's never been its job. But we were hearing it would provide a "detailed narrative," quote/unquote and it has done certainly that. There's a lot of information here about the kind of -- in the 41-page report, about the kind of weapon system used. It's going to be hard, I think, for many to suggest that the rebels were capable of putting together a sophisticated delivery system, surface-to-surface missiles like this. It goes on to certify the kind of rockets used. That will be seized upon by those who would suggest only probably the regime has this. And it goes on also to be quite detailed, even showing the kind of letters, the Russian letters, in fact, that were found on the missiles, G-I and (INAUDIBLE) in the Russian alphabet. Even going into the trajectories in which they were fired, the compass degrees in which the rockets would have allowed.

We also heard from Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, giving comments to reporters. I should quote from him. He said, "The findings are beyond doubt and beyond the pale," referring to this as a war crime. Telling the Security Council it violates the 1925 protocol on the use of weapons like this -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Did they give a number of how many people were killed in that attack? The U.S., as you know, says more than 1,400 -- 400 of whom were children. Did this U.N. report say how many people died?

PATON-WALSH: No, there is no concrete figure about that. And I think in many ways that would be wise of the U.N. inspectors because it's so extraordinarily difficult to determine how many people die in the certain instances in Syria at best of times, let alone with an incident as complex and horrifying as this, where many witnesses, of course, also succumbed to the toxic fumes. It will be set potentially at a latter date. Many question whether it's possible to say 1,429 people died with quite the precision that the secretary of state, John Kerry, did.

But there's a lot of detail in here. The only inspectors to get on the ground, to gather the evidence, to talk to witnesses, to have what they refer to as chain of custody from samples taken from victims or sites to laboratories in the Hague and the multiple tests performed upon them. The U.N. said this would be independent and credible, and in many ways this is -- this is their final document -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Nick Paton-Walsh, over at the United Nations, thanks very much.

Another important story we're following, Colorado's epic flooding, causing all sorts of problems right now. The National Guard says 15 of their own are stranded. It happened after rising floodwaters forced them to abandon their efforts to evacuate residents near Alliance, Colorado. Hundreds still unaccounted for. Roads are impassable. Thousands of people still waiting to be rescued. The stranded are asked to use flares, sheets, or mirrors to get the attention of helicopters.

It's now five days. Five days, after the floodwaters started rising, and a grim reality is clearly setting in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW APPELBAUM, MAYOR OF BOULDER, COLORADO: I think there's still going to be a lot of shock and disbelief, the amount of destruction, the damage to people's houses, the damage to neighborhoods, the damage to roads, the damage to our much beloved open space. It's pretty significant. And as I said, it's extraordinarily wide spread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll stay on top of the disaster in Colorado.

We'll get back to the shooting here in Washington. We'll take a quick break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A really awful day here in the nation's capital. In Washington, D.C., a shooting, a mass shooting. That's the way President Obama described it, a mass shooting over at the U.S. Navy Yard. Multiple fatalities, multiple injuries. One shooter, according to the D.C. police chief, is dead. But there may be two others, according to Cathy Lanier. All of that very, very confusing right now. Lots of fluidity in this situation.

We do know that there is heightened security around several major locations in the nation's capital, about a mile or so and a half away -- a mile and a half away from the Navy Yard at the U.S. Capital. There's heightened security across the river at the Pentagon. Heightened security for a brief time. Even there was a slow-down of aircraft coming into Reagan International Airport across the river from the U.S. Navy Yard. The shooting incident occurred at the Naval Sea Systems Command building, 197. Unclear precisely how many people were shot, how many people are deceased as of right now. We're staying on top of the breaking news. We're staying on top of all the day's major news.

I'll be back, 5:00 p.m. eastern, later today in "The Situation Room." Thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

Jake Tapper is on the scene for us. He picks up the coverage right now -- Jake?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Wolf.