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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Deadly Attack At Boston Marathon; 8-Year-Old Identified as Martin Richard; Authorities Investigating in Revere, Mass.; Marine Copter Makes Hard Landing Near North Korea Border

Aired April 16, 2013 - 06:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely devices here. I need officers. Definitely devices here.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): An act of terror at a uniquely American event.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boom. And then another one. Boom. And then another one. Boom. It's like one after the other. It was just one big cloud of smoke. This is really, really bad.

BERMAN: The city of Boston bloodied but not broken after two bomb blasts at the finish line of the iconic marathon. The attackers taking lives and limbs but not the will of a city or a nation.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this and we will find out who did this. We'll find out why they did this. Bostonians will pull together, take care of each other, and move forward as one proud city, and as they do, the American people will be with them every single step of the way.

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BERMAN (on-camera): Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this special edition of EARLY START. I'm John Berman live here in Boston this morning, a city really reeling right now from this double attack. Two bombs that went off right at the end of the Boston marathon.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, John, look, this is your hometown you understand the situation right here very well. This is the front cover of the "USA Today." If we can show it I think it's a really great image of capturing what happened here.

Nobody needs to be reminded of the tragedy, of course, but the immediate response of people helping in this situation, the triage done in this situation. We know that there are three people who lost their lives. But there is no question that looking at the pictures of the injuries and the discussions we've had overnight with medical professionals, there could have been many more dead, a lot of people still struggling for their lives, but given us two reasons for it.

The first is the nature of this ordnance, low explosive, high to medium impact in a tight zone. It wasn't a high explosive, which has the concussive waves that can kill you just from the force, literally the air being pushed and pulled by the bomb. The second is the triage that was done on the ground.

BERMAN: It happened a block away from the medical center. There were doctors on hand. There were so many law enforcement officials on hand right there to treat them almost immediately.

CUOMO: Immediate response, a dedicated team of upwards to 50, 60 people, and there's something else, luck. I know we don't attach luck to a situation like this because it is unmitigated bad any way you look at it.

But the fact that right now there are people, dozens struggling, they're going to need more surgeries, some of them although touch and go the doctors are saying, but the fact that the death toll isn't much, much higher here is a blessing.

BERMAN: We have live team coverage of this tragedy and we're going to begin here in downtown Boston this morning. You know, this area, even at 6:00 a.m., Chris, this area normally be bustling.

We're on Commonwealth Ave right now, a few blocks away on Boylston Street it's virtually shut down right there because it is a crime scene, the National Guard, very much patrolling.

CUOMO: And obviously investigation was big overnight. All of us who were here were watching people work the scene. They never stopped. We do know that three people lost their lives. One of them was an 8- year-old boy.

His name has been out in the media as Martin Richard of Dorchester, Massachusetts. A terrible detail, nobody wants to see anybody be lost, and this story, more painful. He was here to watch his daddy, who was finishing the race.

He was here with his sister and his mother. He'd gone out to the sidewalk to get his dad a hug for finishing. All three of them were hurt. He lost his life. His sister injured, his mother injured and the father having to live with that now, a very painful story.

BERMAN: They're among the 144 people injured right now. Some 17 we understand in critical condition at this point. While this is happening, of course, the investigation is still very much going on.

CUOMO: Very active. What do we know? We know that no group has taken credit for this attack. We know that one Pakistani terrorist organization says it is not them so sometime despite process of exclusion they're just starting to work the scene very strongly because they have had to do this extensive search.

So many packages left, bags that they had to look at and make sure they couldn't be devices themselves or ordinance. They're looking for what they call the bomb signature. They're going to go back to the blast sites and learn what they can from the way this bomb was made as to what type of sophistication was needed to make it and start narrowing down who would have that.

BERMAN: There was a search they executed overnight in the town of Revere, which is on the north shores about 5 miles here from Boston right now. Police are not saying whether any arrests were made right there. But again, they were there overnight, checking out that apartment building.

CUOMO: Being very cautious. We believe the apartment is connected to an individual who's hospitalized right now. Authorities have not come out and said that there is a specific connection between this individual and what happened. Then again we're also being told the individual is not free to leave the hospital.

This is supposedly their apartment. They were going through it. They were looking for things. But this is casting a wide net, as well and we should wait for those details, obviously.

BERMAN: Absolutely. So much going on here this morning in the investigation right now and, of course, in the treatment. As we said there were two coordinated explosions. The first happened about 2:50 p.m. yesterday. About 4 hours 9 minutes into the race. That's two hours after you might say the elite runners finished.

The second blast about 15 seconds just after the first one, this is what it looked and sounded like. You know, the complete scene here just chaos and confusion. You know, many of those who witnessed the carnage, they were just running for their lives, some of them runners, some of them spectators. There were other people who were there desperately trying to help.

CUOMO: I'll tell you we've covered a lot of these, too many you could say, never seen a response that was more immediate, more furious, than this one, first responders, but also those medical people who had been sitting here expecting cramps, dehydration, maybe cardiac arrest.

They jumped into triage mode and they certainly saved lives on the ground. Hopefully that's good fortune for people who had the bad luck of being injured. Another important aspect of what we know about this, the place where this bomb was put and the timing of it, took some intelligence and sophistication of this particular event.

It would be second nature to you because this is your hometown. But to know that that corner at that time is going to be densely populated. To know that that four-hour mark is when you have the thickest group of runners coming through shows that there was some timing here that was sophisticated.

BERMAN: You had to know what was going on. It's no small point of pride for me. I think we have the best doctors, the best hospitals in the world here in Boston. Right now our Poppy Harlow is standing by truly one of the best, Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston where a number of those hurt are being treated right now. Good morning, Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. And you're absolutely right, some of the best medical attention in the world is in this city, thank goodness, because so many at this hour are severely injured, 144, that is the current count, that is the highest number that we have had since the attack yesterday afternoon.

Thirty one of those are being treated here at Brigham and Women's Hospital. That is the highest number being treated here. We also have the number at Mass General, we're going to play you some sound in a moment from some of the key trauma surgeons at both of them.

Let's run through the numbers for our viewers, 17 still in critical condition. That is what we know, 25 of the injured are still in serious condition. We also know, and this is incredibly troubling, that eight of those who are injured are children. We know that 10 people have suffered amputations as a result of this attack.

The ages, everywhere from 2 years old to 71 years old in terms of those injured. And a trauma surgeon, Dr. Peter Fagenholz, at Massachusetts General spoke to us in the press corps last night about the debris, specifically what he has been finding in the O.R. I want you to listen to how he described it.

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DR. PETER FAGENHOLZ, TRAUMA SURGEON, MASS GENERAL: There is a lot of small metal debris. Some people have asked already about whether it were BBs or they were parts of bombs, and I just don't think we're able to say whether these were bits of metal placed there intentionally or just part of the environment involved with the blast.

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HARLOW: That's critical. Another thing that is critical, John, is that he said some of the most complex and severe injuries are going to mean that some of these patients are going to have to come back time and time again for repeat operations.

This is really just the beginning for them here at Brigham and Women's Hospital. One of the heads Dr. Ron Walls, he is one of the heads of emergency medicine here. He talked about the young patients. Listen.

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DR. RON WALLS, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL: Our youngest patient was 16 years old. But we had one child of 3 who was brought in initially, and we immediately re-triaged that patient to children's hospital, which as you know is right beside us.

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HARLOW: The consistent thing that we're hearing across the board from surgeons at different hospitals is that they have never done, seen anything like the volume, the quantity, the rush that they saw in their emergency rooms. But they did say, across the board, that they were prepared. They had prepared for a tragic situation like this.

BERMAN: You know, you said victims as young as 2 and 3 years old, which is awful, but it's not surprising for an event like this. The Boston Marathon, Patriot's Day, really Boston's day where families line the entire 26-mile route from Hopkinton, so no surprise that kids were right there when those bombs went off.

And we now know that it was an 8-year-old boy, an 8-year-old boy among those three people killed. What have you learned about him, Poppy?

HARLOW: Well, his name, as our Chris Cuomo just reported, and as we've been telling you this morning, according to "The Boston Globe," the 8-year-old boy's name is Martin Richard and he's from just a few minutes outside of Boston, Dorchester, Massachusetts.

He is from a family that is clearly a light in this community. The community coming together last night at a restaurant to remember this 8-year-old boy, and also to support the family, because the mother has been injured in this attack, and the sister, severely injured.

The father apparently a community leader there and the community rallying around, coming together, John, to support this family that has gone through so much, not only lost its son, but now going through the pain of severe injuries to the mother and also to the daughter.

BERMAN: It's just awful for that family. Our hearts go out to them. Dorchester is such a tight-knit community and there's a great deal of concern for that family this morning. Poppy Harlow, our thanks to you.

CUOMO: Have to balance the urgency of taking care of the wounded with finding out who did this and why. There is word that investigators raided an apartment in Revere, Massachusetts this morning. Supposedly, we're told, connected to an individual they've been interviewing.

No real definite connection, but let's get the latest. National correspondent Susan Candiotti is joining us live with details from New York this morning. Good morning, Susan. What do we know now?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris and John. Yes, let's pick up, Chris, with what you were just talking about, and that's the amount of time they spent in Revere, as you said, just about 5 miles or so north of the Boston area.

We understand that authorities spent at least eight hours there, getting there around 5:30 or so in the afternoon yesterday. And they were on site there until about 2:00 in the morning. Inside this building they were checking out, we are told, according to sources, at least one apartment there.

We don't know whether that was an occupied apartment or not. We did not see. Our Brian Todd on the scene did not see authorities leave with anyone in custody. Not sure whether they removed anything from that apartment. But we are told that there may be a connection between that apartment and possibly someone who was wounded in this investigation.

We can tell you that according to our law enforcement sources, that a Saudi national and one of his legs was wounded has been under guard in the hospital. They've been talking with him. They are not saying whether this person is a suspect at this time.

But it is one of the leads that they're checking out, and they tell us that they have several of them. Of course, they have a number of witnesses that they're speaking with here. Again, no one is yet, as far as we know, taking credit for this terrible bomb blast.

And, of course, they've got all kinds of surveillance videos that they're going to be examining, as well -- John and Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Susan, thank you very much. Please keep us updated throughout the morning. John, I'm going to turn now to Juliette Kayyem. She is a CNN contributor, "Boston Globe" columnist as well.

Juliette, picking up on what we were just hearing there, the idea of no loud and proud here, no group stepping up saying that they did it. A little bit of process of exclusion here. What are the steps we're going to see?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, COLUMNIST, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I think that's exactly right. I think the fact that no one has sort of said, it was me, leads a lot of people to focus on the domestic side of this. But I don't think that the police are going -- and I don't think they'll get dissuaded by that.

There have been instances where no one's taken claim for it for awhile. Basically there are two investigations going on. Both within the FBI, one is going to be are there any foreign intelligence sources, any chatter that would have predicted that this was going to happen?

The second is going to be the domestic home-grown. Different laws apply to both and different agencies will be involved with both. And then they also would come together at the FBI. There's a lot of people involved right now, plus the state and local who have information.

BERMAN: Just a short while ago we saw these Humvees, we saw the National Guard drive by in a small convoy. You don't see it very much in Boston.

KAYYEM: No.

BERMAN: But it's crucial we are seeing it here. They are part of what you think is a really important part of this investigation that is securing the crime scene.

KAYYEM: Right.

BERMAN: Securing that stretch on Boylston Street just a few blocks away.

KAYYEM: Right. So that was the National Guard. There's about Humvees that just went by. You don't see that very regularly. They're falling within the incident command system. They used to report to me when I worked in the state government.

So they're going to secure these sites and the reason why, it was a brilliant move yesterday, whoever made it should get an award from this, immediately diverting all those runners about half a mile left as they came down this street commonwealth. It did two things.

One was the chaos was minimized. This morning it's incredibly calm here and then secondly it preserved the crime scene, which is going to be key for the FBI investigation. Those are lessons learned out of 9/11. People say, how could this happen again?

Look we're an open society. Marathons are open events. They are hard to secure. The better way to look at it, I think, is did we respond better? I think the answer is yes. And did we preserve the crime scene which is yes.

CUOMO: Explain the necessity of a bomb signature, what they're looking at there that can help them moving forward.

KAYYEM: There's going to be -- the signature is going to be the design. Where would that person have learned to make a bomb? Is it something off the web? That might lead to domestic terrorism? Is it something more sophisticated?

We're also hearing the same things today, which is probably less sophisticated than not, which would lead to domestic source. Second thing were there fingerprints, hair, other things that the suspect left on them and then the trigger. That's going to be the big one.

Was it detonation by cell phone? How could someone have gotten in two places so quickly or were there two perpetrators? But the fact that we're able to ask those questions, FBI and police are asking those questions.

And I can say this for awhile and I'm pretty confident that you're going to see pretty good movement within the next two or three days because there's so much physical evidence. And I should add eyewitness and topography that are going to be key in this regard, the thing with photographs.

BERMAN: All right, Juliette Kayyem, you know, our thanks to you.

As you said, those bomb signatures come off both the exploded and unexploded ordnance in this case. You're going to want to stay with CNN throughout the morning for really the most complete, up-to-date coverage of this terror attack at the Boston Marathon.

Ahead this morning, you know, we have the FBI taking the lead in the investigation. Raising its mobilization efforts to level one. We're going to tell you what that means.

CUOMO: Plus, we'll have the latest on the search for suspects, it's wide-ranging and what happens. We'll tell you right here.

BERMAN: Major cities like Miami, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they are all on heightened states of alert this morning. You know, how the attack in Boston, how that could affect you in your town today.

CUOMO: And also, you know, this city has to live, it has to move on. How tough is it going to be for the city of Boston and the country to bounce back from this after the marathon, bombings? We're going to have all of that on the state of America psyche, coming up next.

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ED DAVIS, BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: This cowardly act would be taken within stride. We will turn every rock over to find the people who are responsible for this.

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CUOMO: Welcome back to a special edition of EARLY START. Boston, Massachusetts, a city clearly in shock this morning. After an attack that targeted the Boston marathon that we've all been living with since yesterday afternoon.

Six blocks square has been cordoned off as the investigation team, city trying to come back to life around it.

BERMAN: A key six block square on Boylston Street. The Boston public library is there, a bustling businessy part of the city shut down today, all part of a crime scene.

This is what we know this morning. We've been saying three people dead, including this 8-year-old boy. "The Boston Globe" is identifying the boy as Martin Richard of Dorchester.

Look at that -- look at that picture right there. Adorable kid.

CUOMO: Sweet kid, becoming the face of this situation, because of the innocence of it, because of the needless nature of this situation. His whole family was there. The father was running the race. The mother, his sister, and this little boy were there.

He had left -- went to the sidewalk to give his daddy that hug for finishing the race. He wound up losing his life. His sister gravely injured, his mother injured. This family -- that's just one family's story.

BERMAN: That family suffering so much. They're from the community of Dorchester, which is a really tight-knit community here near Boston and they are pulling together behind that family here.

The FBI is taking the lead in this investigation. Overnight authorities spent hours searching an apartment in Revere, Massachusetts. That's five miles north of where we're standing here in Boston. We don't know if any arrests were made there. But investigators were seen leaving this apartment building with bags, we're told, of evidence. You can see that right there. I guess that's going into the building right now.

CUOMO: It could be because of specific intelligence they got in an interview with a particular individual that's hospitalized, may have been injured when the bomb went off, shrapnel in the back of the leg, or it could be because they want to test items.

One of the things about explosives is that they leave traces, different materials that were used. And when they come together the combinant effect can also be something to trace. So they're going to do this.

We know that the administration very hot on this situation. The president getting briefed by homeland security and counterterrorism teams to make sure that the response, and the investigation, is complete into these explosions. The president has been directing a team to make sure all federal resources are available to support these efforts as we've been here this morning, John, certainly we're seeing the results of the intensity.

BERMAN: You know, right now, bomb experts are analyzing the evidence. There is a lot of evidence to analyze, including the exploded ordnance, the unexploded ordnance. We think two, maybe more, unexploded devices were there.

They sent Navy bomb experts here, military experts right now. And, of course, as you've been saying all morning what they're looking for is some kind of bomb-making signature.

CUOMO: Right. And as you know all too well from all the coverage you did in Iraq, these explosives yesterday do seem to size up with the types of an IED. We all know what that acronym is now, improvised explosive device. Why?

Well, unsophisticated in terms of the low power of the explosion. We keep using that phrase. Let's be clear: low explosive can be up to 3,000 feet per second. A handgun, a .9 millimeter, bullet coming out at 1,000, 1,200 feet per second.

So, imagine something within this explosive or around it being propelled at that you start to understand why these injuries were so grave. A lot is being done how the wide net for this investigation, we're going to go to CNN's Barbara Starr. She's live at the Pentagon keeping track of which way the investigation goes on the forensic level.

Barbara, thank you for joining us. What's the latest?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON, CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, John, what we know is you're making a war zone analogy. It is very apt in this case. U.S. military sent the Navy explosive ordnance team to help with detonation and looking at the devices. And the military, with its years of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, in fact, for many years now, has been working very closely with the FBI joint terrorism task force, FBI explosives experts, on this very question of bomb signatures.

We keep using that phrase. What does it really mean? Bomb makers tend to put their bombs together the same way. When they train other bomb makers, perhaps in the United States, overseas, they tend to put them together the same way. That is a bomb maker's signature, if you will.

So, the experts in all of this who have the years of experience are looking at all the forensics. How was the bomb put together? What kind of fuse? What kind of detonator? What kind of explosives?

What was the power of the bomb? How was it placed? And where could an individual get the specific materials that are used to make the bomb? All of these things are being looked at along with any sense of fingerprints, of DNA, of intelligence chatter. They're going to put it all together and hope they come up with some answers.

BERMAN: And again, Barbara, as you said, they have the unexploded bombs and exploded bombs. They will be combing through every piece of them as these minutes progress this morning. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Our thanks to you.

CUOMO: Now we heard a lot of random numbers yesterday about the devices. That's a good thing. That means that the authorities were taking everything they saw so seriously that they had to rule them out as devices. They were using water cannons in cases to make sure that these weren't actually bombs, they were just suspicious packages.

Obviously now, Boston has to figure out how to recover. Your town, as tough as any. The resilience we saw in the immediacy after the explosions have been helping each other. Now, the question is: how does the rest of the world react, a big indicator will be how the market reacts.

BERMAN: That's right. The market reacts. We will get to that. So much else as this investigation here in Boston continues.

Stay with us.

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CUOMO: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Chris Cuomo just outside Copley Square.

The bombs have gone off, but be clear, nothing is over here. People are still fighting for their lives. An investigation is ongoing to find out who did this, and why. And, of course, the rest of the world reacting this morning.

We're going to go to Brooke Baldwin in New York for news from around the world.

Brooke, we're starting with another major threat to America, obviously, in North Korea.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right. Here we go again, Chris. Good morning. And good morning to you.

Beginning in North Korea now the leader's dialing up the rhetoric here. Here is what we know right now. They're saying that they will not provide any warnings before attacking South Korea. Leaders in Seoul say the latest North's threats are regrettable.

Also, in South Korea, a U.S. Marine helicopter went down near the border with the North. We're now seeing some pictures of the scene. Here you go. Take a look at the smoke here. See the fire, calling it a hard landing.

The Marines were taking part in a drill. There were some injuries, but all the Marines reportedly will be OK.

Minding your business this Tuesday morning, a recovery on Wall Street. Stocks are set to open a bit higher today. But this comes after a pretty big sell-off yesterday. CNN's Alison Kosik is in for Christine Romans.

And as we say, yesterday was the worst day of the year. Keeping it in perspective, it's been a pretty good year.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It really has. You really do have to put it in perspective. Take a step back from the day-to- day performance and see the triple digit decline of yesterday and take the bigger view.

Stocks have already had a huge run-up this year, hitting record highs almost regularly. You look at the S&P 500. The Dow up anywhere from 9 percent to 13 percent this year.

And then you look at yesterday's stock performance on news of the bombings in Boston. You saw the sell-off accelerate right after the bombing. But this was a slow, steady decline. It was more of an orderly sell, not panicky. But in the end of the day, when the closing bell rang, only 120 points. You can sort of pin on that news headline of that 266-point drop on the Dow. That's less than half.

We also saw commodities get hit. Gold prices, they had their biggest decline, their one-day percentage decline in 30 years. That was a bit eye-popping. But you saw the markets. It's recovering right now in the premarket stocks are higher so it looks like market's taking a breather.

BALDWIN: OK. Alison Kosik, thank you very much. We're going to get you back to Boston in just a moment as people are fighting for their lives here. Resilient group of people, though, in Boston.

Coming up, though, a lot of questions still this morning, including who would do this, who was responsible for this terror attack at the Boston marathon? We will have the latest n the investigation happening right now.

Bottom of the hour on this Tuesday continuing coverage of the special edition of CNN's EARLY START.

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