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Aftermath of Navy Yard Shooting; Shooter Sought Help from the VA; Interview with Larry Barton; Interview with Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton; Costa Concordia Sitting Upright

Aired September 17, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What about his personal history? One of the things disturbingly fascinating about this man are the contradictions here. Apparently devoted to Buddhism, at the same time had been arrested for gun violence in the past, at least two if not more incidents of that. How do these contradictions affect an investigation?

SHAWN HENRY, FORMER EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI: One of the things I've learned in my experience in the FBI is that these things don't often happen in a vacuum. There are flags that come up. And oftentimes what you see of somebody is not what they really are. And it's the investigation that will pull that out, that will tease that out and provide investigators with the clues to come up with some information about what the motivation was.

BERMAN: One of the things our Pamela Brown has reported is that this man reached out more than once in recent times to the VA, possibly for some mental health help. As investigators, how much of that would you look into and legally how much can you?

HENRY: Yes, I think it's something that you want to look to towards motivation certainly. It's historically we've seen in many of these shootings there has been some mental health connection. It's something that investigators will look at. They'll look to talk to people again who know him, who worked with him and might have seen signs that this was upcoming.

BERMAN: And while we have you here let me ask you one last question about the guns here because the information we've been getting has changed over the last day here and I'm wondering if you can help our audience understand how that can be. How yesterday it seemed to be an AR-15 that everyone was talking about. We were told that was most likely the weapon that was used. Today the information seems to have changed radically.

HENRY: Right.

BERMAN: It was a shotgun that he walked in with. That's what he bought in northern Virginia. He may have taken two pistols once he was in the building off of guards inside that building. How does that information change so radically over 24 hours during an investigation?

HENRY: That's the answer right there. It's just 24 hours. And there's a fog of war in an incident like this. People don't always recall what they saw exactly. Their emotions are high, their adrenaline is high. They don't always know. It's going to be many days and perhaps weeks, before we have really the ground truth about what happened today.

BERMAN: And chances are things will change again.

HENRY: There is no doubt.

BERMAN: All right Shawn Henry thank you so much. I appreciate you being with us.

HENRY: Thank you.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Fascinating. When we come back, we're going to -- we're going to -- actually, we're going to turn our focus now to the gunman, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis. He began working at the Navy Yard just last week after working at multiple offices over the summer. But despite having what Navy officials say was a, quote, "Pattern of misconduct", Alexis received an honorable discharge.

Larry Barton is the CEO of American College and an expert in workplace violence. Good morning.

LARRY BARTON, CEO, AMERICAN COLLEGE: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh good Larry you can hear me. Do you think this is a case of workplace violence?

BARTON: Well, it's going to take time, obviously. There's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks right now. But what we want to think about is this. It appears to be workplace violence related for the following reasons. This is somebody who clearly had dysfunction at work, was in and out of different positions in life. We know now for a fact that he was being treated at the VA as recently as last month. The question is, was there a process from the VA to connect with the Navy to let them know that a subcontractor was potentially under treatment?

But remember, the primary reason why it appears to be workplace violence is that it was done at a place of work, no different than Captain Hasan in Fort Hood. So it does appear to be workplace violence related but was it a specific person he was targeting, was it a policy, was it someone? That is very unclear. It may have been he just wanted to make a statement, and this is where he could commit the maximum amount of lethal impact.

COSTELLO: Well, I think a lot of people would probably argue with you for your characterization of what happened at Fort Hood, but let's focus on what happened yesterday at the U.S. Navy Yard.

This guy was a contractor, a subcontractor. He didn't work at the U.S. Navy Yard every day. He worked in many different places. So why choose this particular place?

BARTON: Well, access -- many -- many crimes are based on a few things and one of them has to do with availability, access, their anger level at this particular time. Did someone or something actually trigger this event for him in recent days? And the most dangerous person at work -- and I teach this both at the FBI and at the American College -- the most dangerous person that we interact with in society is called a grievance collector, the grievance collector. What kind of grievances did he have?

So it is unclear right now, but that's why investigators will be very thorough in trying to determine, was he angry with the Navy Yard? Was it with his employer? Or was it with any specific people? Right now it does not appear that it was specific persons. He wanted to make a statement. The question is what was the statement and why?

COSTELLO: But -- but if this is a case of workplace violence, it would be very difficult to determine whether he was dangerous to this particular group of people. Friends of his in Texas say he was happy, he was a friendly guy, but lately he had changed and he worried about his income and the place where he was -- HP, you know the security firm he worked for, this computer security firm. He supposedly had some trouble with them as far as his wages were concerned. He was having trouble with his car. And he exhibited some signs of abnormal behavior but not many.

So how would you -- how would you know that this guy was a danger to any military facility that he worked at?

BARTON: I'm not sure anyone would know. And your question is spot- on, Carol. I'm not sure anyone would know that he was going to in any way do anything in a lethal fashion.

But here's another example. His monk at his Buddhism temple yesterday said that he had been told directly by Alexis that he was troubled, that he had a lot of personal problems.

But the challenge here is who connects the dots? And I think that's exactly what you're asking. So should anyone at that facility have known that they were in harm's way? I don't think so. But that's where investigators are going to now go back and look at access controls, which a big question. You know people who are contractors have open access after their employment has ended through a basement, to be able to come in and get to a top floor and shoot down, these are fundamentals. That's why I think your Congressman earlier had a terrific point, which is let's make sure it doesn't happen again.

It can happen again, but we can try to do everything possible to take this incident and learn from it. So who connected the dots? Who knew what when? Were there any lessons in terms of his grievances, his mental health, anything he wrote on a blog, anything that's in that hotel that now investigators are going through?

And I've studied, as I've said, 3,000 cases. We will learn at least a little bit more about perpetrators because of this tragedy. It's a horrible way to put it, but that's how we learn.

COSTELLO: I hope so. Larry Barton CEO of American College. Thanks so much for being with me this morning.

We're back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Welcome back to our coverage of the Washington Navy Yard shooting here just a few blocks from where I'm standing right now. It was just over 24 hours ago when 12 people went to work in the morning and were gunned down. They never went home. Several more people were injured right now.

There are so many questions about what happened and why. One of the people asking those questions is someone who was integral in bringing this part of the city up, raising it up; the standard of living here has improved so much. This is a community that is come so far in recent years, only to see this tragedy yesterday.

Washington, D.C.'s delegate to Congress, Representative in Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton joins us right now. Thank you so much for being with us Representative. I'm wondering if you can tell me based on what you've seen today, how is Washington recovering?

REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), WASHINGTON D.C.: Well, for us, this is the greatest violence we've seen in our region since 9/11. And the -- the agency involved is one that is an integral part of our neighborhood. So this is not like a federal agency somewhere. It's a federal agency that you have to have in the daytime certainly you have to have a badge to get in, you have to be cleared.

But in the evenings it is a facility that the Navy allows the community to use in its banquet halls. Washington is recovering, but Washington needs a lot more answers. We perhaps feel most deeply that this man was able to get into such a secure facility with a gun. That's about the last thing you'd expect to happen, even in facility that are not secure.

BERMAN: So then what needs to happen to make sure that this doesn't occur again? He went in apparently with a valid security pass. He was given a security clearance just over the summer, despite incidents of violence, gun violence, in his past. What changes need to be made?

NORTON: Well now you're going to see oversight by Congress and you're going to see internal investigations. But this is a real issue did this man's condition, did his mental condition, deteriorate after he got his security clearance? I think the President needs to appoint a special, specialized panel that would have security and military experts. And frankly experts on these facilities and large cities, we don't want them walled off. We want them to become part of the community. But we certainly want those who work there to be secure.

So I think this needs a rather special investigation and I'm writing the -- the President today to ask him to appoint just such a specialized panel.

BERMAN: As a separate thing than gun violence, what you're saying, security at military installations throughout the country. It would be here at the Washington Navy Yard, Fort Hood would be another example where something like this happened. And that's what you're talking about, specific focus on that?

NORTON: Yes remember these -- who are these people? These were 12 federal employees and everybody in there virtually was a federal employee, not military, because increasingly the Department of Defense has been moving its own civilian employees on to such military sites. The only thing military about this was its security. And it was part of the Navy Yard which has been renovated precisely because they wanted the Navy Sea Systems Command to remain here in this region. So we need -- we need this -- we need much more information about keeping such federal employees, the same ones that are on sequester, the same ones who you read about every day who are taking cuts in their pay. who are these people, how can we make sure that they can live within our cities and still be secure?

BERMAN: One last question -- one last question, Representative. One last question -- whenever there is an event of violence involving guns and it invariably gets involved in the gun control debate here, Washington, D.C. has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet this incident still occurred. What can be learned from that?

NORTON: We confiscate guns, sometimes thousands of guns, every year. Every last one of those guns comes from outside of the District of Columbia, comes from the region or comes from places that have lax gun laws. That's why you see many of us in Congress fighting for national gun reform legislation. You can't do it -- you can't do it jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

BERMAN: Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, thank you so much for being with us. We're sorry for everything your city has been going through over the last 24 hours. I appreciate your time.

NORTON: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Also new this morning -- thanks Congresswoman Norton -- also new this morning, law enforcement sources tell CNN that Aaron Alexis had recently reached out to the Veterans Administration and its hospitals. He was apparently seeking help for psychological issues.

Jeff Gardere is a clinical and forensic psychologist. Dr. Jeff joins us now from New York. Good morning.

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL/FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: I want to take you back to 2001 actually because supposedly during that time this shooter, according to his father, did something during 9/11 when the World Trade Center Towers came down. His father said he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and that's why in 2004 he had this incident where he shot out the cars of a construction worker's vehicle and he blacked out and couldn't remember it. Does that make sense to you?

GARDERE: Well, we have to know that a lot of people experienced PTSD and did not engage in violence. So we have to look at what made this particular individual, if this is true, that he had this blackout or what we call a fugue state, part of a dissociation which is part of a post-traumatic stress disorder. What made him more vulnerable to that, especially since he was a younger person and we know younger people are much more resilient to the symptoms of PTSD?

So it does kind of fit, but I would assert, as we've seen with many of these shooters in the past, Carol, that they perhaps had a predisposition for some other mental health issue which may have not been diagnosed which put them in a position to suffer with a more complex PTSD and have this blackout or fugue state.

COSTELLO: Now, supposedly the shooter actually told police he had this blackout and he couldn't remember shooting the tires out of this vehicle. Then he applies to get into the Navy Reserves, and they accept him. So do you recover from such a thing? Should the Navy have been more aware of that? Maybe the Navy didn't know?

GARDERE: Well, evidently, from what we're hear, the Navy still did not think that he was unfit for duty, and that's why he got an honorable discharge. It could be because he was not experiencing what we call a schizophrenia but more of this complex PTSD where you have this disassociation where you are in some ways separating yourself from reality, which might give us some indication as to what happened yesterday, though it's going to take many more days to figure out what his state of mind was.

I'm hearing reports that he had reached out to the VA, that perhaps he was hearing voices. He had some sleep issues. Certainly there was some sort of paranoia. And then we take a look at this criminal past, aggression, and of course, the situation of rage which always rears its ugly head in these sorts of situations. So definitely, some real mental health issues with this individual.

COSTELLO: Ok. Dr. Jeff Gardere, thank you so much for joining us in the NEWSROOM today. We appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the monumental task of righting the Costa Concordia is done, but the salvage operation is far from over. A live report from the coast of Italy, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: We'll have more on the shooting here at the Washington Navy Yard in just a bit, but we want to take you overseas for a major, major accomplishment today. A salvage crew successfully righted the Costa Concordia earlier this morning 20 months after the cruise liner ran aground off the coast of -- off the Italian coast, killing 32 people. Now, this move clears the way for a more thorough search to try to find the remains of two of the victims of that accident. CNN's Matthew Chance joins us right now -- an amazing technological feat, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is. I mean, all the authorities here, the people of Giglio, the island where this wrecked Costa Concordia has been marooned for the past 20 months full of praise for the salvage team that pulled off really a technological marvel. I mean it's never been attempted to roll over a ship of this size before. It's an absolutely enormous bit of machinery. You can still see there are two-thirds of that -- it looks enormous out there but there are still two-thirds of the ship underneath the sea line. There was some 4,200 people or more on board when it was marooned and crashed up against these rocks on the coast of Giglio.

They had to turn it over in a very slow, painstaking sort of technological exercise until it rested on that platform they've built on the seabed. Now, the next step, of course, you mentioned is to search for the two bodies that were never recovered. 32 people died, two of them never recovered. And so police and rescue teams are inside there now trying to see whether they can locate those bodies to bring closure for the families involved.

The next step after that, it's back to the salvage operation. It's going to be refloated before it can be towed away to a salvage yard -- John.

BERMAN: All right. The job not quite done there yet. Still amazing what has been accomplished so far. Matthew Chance, thank you so much.

We're going to get a check of today's other top stories in just a moment. NEWSROOM continues after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Welcome back. A quick check of some of the day's other top stories:

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council meet behind closed doors today. They'll go over a resolution backing the United States/Russia plan to get Syria to give up its chemical weapons. At a news conference earlier today with his French counterpart, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov rejected any U.N. resolution authorizing force against Syria. The U.S. and France want to keep that option if Syria does not comply in a timely fashion.

For the first time in a week, the sun dominates across Colorado. And as the weather improves, many people are returning home to find nothing left. Hundreds of other people, though, are still unaccounted for. The floodwaters in Colorado are slowly receding, but some runoff is heading toward Nebraska and could flood towns in that state.

Investigators say last week's fire that involved dozens of businesses on the Boardwalk along the Jersey Shore was an accident. We're expecting more specifics today. It's believed the cause was electrical. The fire started in an ice cream shop and then spread quickly and it got out of control. Crews had already spend months rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy rolled through last October.

That's it for us. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Carol Costello.

BERMAN: and I'm John Berman. "LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield continues right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Live from Washington, D.C., I'm Ashleigh Banfield.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: And I'm Chris Cuomo -- happy to join you here.

BANFIELD: It's good to have you and on this solemn occasion. We're standing outside a naval installation that is almost as old as Navy itself. But for many years to come, the Washington Navy Yard behind us is going to be known for a --