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Families Make Grim Pilgrimage to Flight 9525 Crash Site; Grieving Process Begins for Crash Victim's Families; Shooting Incident at NSA in Maryland; Outrage Grows Over Indiana Religious Freedom Law. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 30, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:30:39] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Brianna Keilar, in for Wolf Blitzer.

Somber scenes playing out in a serene setting. Families of the victims of those aboard flight 9525 are making a grim pilgrimage to the crash site in the French Alps. On a beautiful note, many local residents there have opened up their homes to the families.

Karl Penhaul joining us now live from near the crash site.

And, Karl, we're hearing that authorities are working to build a road so that relatives can actually get as close as possible to the site, right?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Brianna. Yeah, that's absolutely the case because, up until now, recovery teams have had to fly into the crash site by helicopter because the terrain is just too rugged to get in there on foot. And so the village mayor here, yesterday morning, sent in a digger, a grader, a backhoe into that action. The job of the backhoe is to carve into the mountainside and make a track there so that rescue teams can get there on foot or on ATVs. And progress, in fact, has been surprisingly quick. They've already got about 400 yards of that tract done. They've reckoned they've got about twice the length to go still. But by the end of the week, recovery teams could be going in on the ground. That should make it a lot quicker to get human remains and parts of the wreckage out.

There's also a little consolation on that front as well because the forensic teams say that, so far, they've identified 78 people. But also on a sad note, they say that because of the speed of the impact, because of the speed of the crash, some of the human remains may never be identified because some of those bodies were just pulverized on impact -- Brianna?

KEILAR: We're seeing Karl with some of the families there. They're really just starting the grieving process. What are they telling you?

PENHAUL: Well, that is the issue. A lot of the families come right here to memorial plaque, a small marble plaque set up over there. But this is still 2.5 miles, as the crow flies, from where the crash actually happened. But families are coming here looking for some peace.

I had the chance to talk to the sister of one of the crash victims. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL (voice-over): A father grieves. A mother and a sister wonder why.

Milad Eslami was a sports journalist from Iran. To Mashid (ph), he was big brother.

MASHID ESLAMI, VICTIM'S SISTER: He said to one of his friends that if someone killed in the flight crash would be OK because you are in the sky, your soul will go. It has been eight minutes.

PENHAUL: Eight minutes for the co-pilot to crash an airliner into the French Alps.

But Milad's uncle, Dawud, prefers to focus on his life, not death.

DAWUD TAWSKICK (ph), UNCLE OF MILAD: He was a fantastic journalist. And he's still one of the best we have in Iran. And because he worked not only as a journalist, he worked with his heart.

PENHAUL: Milad had been in Spain with friend and a fellow journalist, Jose Javedi (ph). They had taken these photos together. They had been covering the soccer game Barcelona versus real Madrid. Milad was a lifelong Barcelona fan. His hero --

(CROSSTALK)

ESLAMI: Absolutely.

PENHAUL: Local village mayor, Francois Balek (ph), is here at a memorial site to help console all the grieving families. And on Sunday, he sent this digger to carve a tract of the crash site. That's around four kilometers or 2.5 miles away, as the crow flies, but until now accessible only by helicopter.

FRANCOIS BALEK (ph), LOCAL MAYOR: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

PENHAUL: "I felt the families wanted this, and they asked me to get them as close as possible, as if every meter mattered to them," he says.

Relatives ask him to describe the area closest to the crash.

BALEK (ph): (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

[13:34:57] PENHAUL: "This was a corner of paradise, but now there is the before and after the accident," he says. "I tell Mashid and Dawud about the alpine scenery up there where wildflowers grow and melted snow runs in crystal streams.

ESLAMI: Everything is good for him. But for us, we just -- we just can't calm ourselves down with this picture that he is now the king of the Alps.

PENHAUL: Milad and all those who flew with him, the kings of the Alps.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL: The passengers were from at least 18 different nations. Their ages span the generations. But now as the sun goes down on another day, that is where they are, the kings of the Alps -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Well put.

Karl, thank you so much for your report there from France.

And this tragedy, it is simply shattering for the families involved. You heard from one there. They are grieving, and they're coming to terms with the details of this disaster. We'll be discussing how they can cope with such horror after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Just a moment ago, we heard about the families of the victims in the Germanwings crash. Many of them making this grim pilgrimage to the crash site in the French Alps. And for them, this grieving process, it's really just beginning.

I want to talk about it now with clinical psychologist, Ruth Wintersgreen. She has also served in the United States Air Force.

And we're learning now, this was something that struck me by what we heard from the sister of one of the victims. She said to now know that there were eight minutes basically of terror because we have the cockpit voice recorder transcripts that have come out. I think the hope of so many people was that these passengers didn't know what was going on until the last minute. We now learn that wasn't true. For family members who are coping, whether it's in the short term or the long term, is it better for them to -- is it worse for them to know that there were these several minutes of terror, or is it better to know what really happened?

[13:40:14] RUTH WINTERSGREEN, PSYCHOLOGIST: Of course, it's horrific to imagine what your loved one was going through. My experience is that often the unknown is worse than the known. That what we imagine we can fill in with our worst nightmares. This is the worst nightmare.

KEILAR: Yeah.

WINTERSGREEN: But it really can be helpful. There's no right answer to this question.

KEILAR: But so over time, for that loved one to know, even if it's this horrific thing, this is what happened, do they sort of have more of a closeness to the person that they lost because at least they know more what they went through?

WINTERSGREEN: What I would encourage family members to think of is that in that space of realizing, there is terror, but there are a lot of protective things that happen in our brains when there is a trauma going on. And we don't think and process things in the same way that we do when our life is not in danger, so the brain has its own protective mechanisms.

KEILAR: Like what?

WINTERSGREEN: Shock, basically. So you shut down. So that is one comfort, I hope, for the families who are grieving. Another is that some people who have experienced -- I see a lot of people who have been through almost fatal --

KEILAR: Near-death experiences where they've almost died.

WINTERSGREEN: Right, in a car or plane crash or something. And they can talk about it being a space where time slowed down, and they had some time to think about, it seemed, that their life was coming to an end. And yes, that's very painful, but I've also had people say, I would want to know if I were about to die.

KEILAR: I would want to have a moment. I would want to process something.

WINTERSGREEN: I would want to have a moment to pray, to think of my loved ones.

KEILAR: Yeah.

WINTERSGREEN: So maybe there's some comfort.

KEILAR: Yeah. Maybe there is some comfort in that because they would have been thinking about their loved ones.

WINTERSGREEN: Absolutely.

KEILAR: Can you give us a sense of -- you know, we know now that Lubitz reportedly had antipsychotic injections in 2010. What does that tell us?

WINTERSGREEN: I think that it's becoming more and more clear. As I said when I first was with Wolf Blitzer here, a few days ago, Lubitz almost definitely had a psychosis, a psychotic disorder.

KEILAR: Yeah.

WINTERSGREEN: Something was very wrong with his brain.

KEILAR: Yeah.

WINTERSGREEN: And I think that that's what this points to.

KEILAR: Yeah.

WINTERSGREEN: And that would cause potentially delusions that he couldn't see. He could have been in the cockpit hearing God tell him to crash the plane. It's extremely hard to have sympathy for someone who murdered 150 people. But most individuals with psychosis or mental illness would never do something to harm others.

KEILAR: They don't understand. And there's --

(CROSSTALK)

WINTERSGREEN: There are times when they're risky, and they're high profile, and so we notice that. But the vast majority of people who have schizophrenia or a psychotic delusional type of illness aren't harmful. And as a therapist or a physician, if I perceive that someone is a potential harm to themselves or another, I would have and any of my colleagues would have to act to keep the person and others safe and have the person hospitalized.

KEILAR: Yeah.

Ruth, thank you so much for your insight. Appreciate it.

WINTERSGREEN: Thank you.

KEILAR: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:47:26] KEILAR: Just in to CNN, we're learning more about that shooting incident at the NSA headquarters in Maryland, how it all unfolded.

I'm joined by CNN's Jim Sciutto.

You have more details here.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, this coming from the NSA. It's the first on CNN. It's a tick tock of events that morning. We see those pictures here now.

We're told that shortly before 9:00 this morning today, a vehicle containing two individuals, that's the car we saw at the top of the screen there, attempted what the NSA is calling an unauthorized entry at this NSA gate, here seen. They say the driver failed to obey the NSA police officers' instructions to leave the scene. It stopped, barriers were deployed. Apparently, the vehicle accelerated then at an NSA police vehicle that was blocking the road. I think you can see that there, the white -- I believe that's the white SUV with the hood up. The vehicle crashed into that and then they say that one of those inside the vehicle was killed. They have not determined how he was killed. Earlier, there was talk that he had been shot. They say that another was injured. Also new in this statement is that an NSA police officer was injured in this and taken to a hospital as well.

They say that this was entirely contained in that area that we're seeing here now in those aerials and that, of course, the FBI is leading the investigation.

So what do we learn here? You learn that there's still questions about the motive. The FBI has said there is no indication of a terrorist connection here. So the question is, why did this car with these two people inside --

KEILAR: Wearing wigs.

SCIUTTO: Well, apparently possibly dressed as women, attempt to go towards this gate and refuse those instructions? Now, to be fair, we should keep in mind that it's possible they were confused. It's possible they were not attempting to ram the gate or try to get inside, et cetera. Maybe they thought they were being chased. There are a whole host of circumstances. And we've seen this before. You remember this shooting case more than a year and a half ago when a woman who had rammed the gate at the White House, you know, was later shot up on the Hill. And it seemed that she had some mental issues.

KEILAR: Very clear that she had a mental break.

SCIUTTO: Exactly. I'm not making --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: There's no substance to connect those two, but what is similar here is we don't know what their motive is.

And the other piece of news in this statement that there was an NSA officer injured in this, in the collision that you can see -- I believe you can identify that white -- there it is. That's the police car with the hood up that was rammed by the civilian car that had advanced against the barriers. And --

KEILAR: But the protocol here for an officer or a guard is to take divisive action.

[13:50:01] SCIUTTO: It is, and in an escalation of circumstances, right? First, to point, to stop, to raise the barriers, as they did. Stop the car from going any further, and then, in this case, an attempt to block the path. Clearly, the car ran into it and one of those inside was killed. But it's not clear how that occupant was killed. They say they're still determining it. Another person was taken to the local hospital along with the police officer who was injured.

KEILAR: OK. We'll wait for more information.

Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

SCIUTTO: Thanks.

KEILAR: Does the GOP have an Indiana problem? The state's religious freedom law has been slammed from everyone from local gay rights activists to the CEO of Apple. But could this impact the 2016 race? Could it make it tougher for Republicans to take the White House? We have that after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:54:28] KEILAR: Let's go now to Wall Street for a quick check of the markets. Looking at the Dow right now, up 263 points. This is following a positive week last week. Analysts saying the positive signs from the head of China's central bank are making investors a little more optimistic about that country's economic outlook, and everything is rising from there.

Well, there is outrage growing over a religious freedom law in Indiana. Hundreds demonstrated against it this weekend. They said that it's a license for businesses to refuse to serve gay people. Indiana Governor Mike Pence says the law is misunderstood, but he deflected questions during an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, (R), GOVERNOR OF INDIANA: This is not about discrimination. This is about empowering people --

(CROSSTALK)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: -- because your supporters said it would. So yes or no, if a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding, is that legal now in Indiana?

PENCE: George, this is where this debate has gone, with misinformation and --

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: It's just a question, sir. Yes or no?

PENCE: Well, there's been shameless rhetoric about my state and about this law and about its intention all over the Internet. People are trying to make it about one particular issue and now you're doing that as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Let's bring in Jeff Zeleny, our senior Washington correspondent; and Peter Hamby, our national political reporter.

So now you have some Indiana Republicans who are saying we're going to clarify this law and make sure it's clear that this is not about discriminating against gay Americans. But you hear Mike Pence right there, very clearly, is not doing a good job of drawing a line and saying this is exactly what it is. Is that going to be enough or will this continue? What do you think, Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I think it's clear that it's not enough. What's also clear is this is really the big post-gay marriage debate fight. Marriage is moving closer and closer to reality. So this is sort of the next terrain we're going to see this fight over, religious liberty. But we saw how difficult it is for Governor Pence to walk a line. Probably not pleasing anyone on either side here.

KEILAR: Exactly.

ZELENY: So a very tough road for Republicans who don't want to talk about it at all.

PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Yeah, and Jeff is right. In the wake of a cascade of gay marriage rulings legalizing in a variety of states, you've seen state legislators, conservative state legislators in states like Indiana push these as the next stage battle while they wait for the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling on this matter in June, which could make same-sex marriage a law of the land, which would make it a convenient answer for the Republicans. When asked about the issue, they could say, well, this is settled law.

KEILAR: OK, which they don't -- sometimes they don't always stay with other laws.

But I think what it is, is you have Americans -- you look at the polls, even just in the last few years, they have crossed the Rubicon on this issue, right? When you look at how this is playing out and even the fact that there are other laws like this, but this is the one that has suddenly caught fire, what does that tell you about 2016 and how this issue is going to play for Republicans?

HAMBY: You are so right. The public opinion on this has moved so fast in just a matter of years. 60 percent of Americans now support same-sex marriage. That number is even higher among so-called Millennials, people under the age of 34. It's about 70 percent, which puts the GOP in a box. Again, they don't want to be talking about this. And Jeff and I were just talking about this. You don't see a lot of Republicans rallying to Mike Pence's defense right now. They do not want anything to do with this. This is a dangerous political issue.

ZELENY: It's very unusual at this phase of the campaign for hopefuls to not want to talk at all which they don't, which is so different from the '04 campaign, for example --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: When they jumped in and talked about it.

ZELENY: Right. So, so much is moving. But I still think that they have to stand up for their social conservative base. The Millennials are one thing but the base of the party that vote in the Iowa caucuses, the South Carolina primary, so much different.

HAMBY: But for now, this is just a -- you can't understate how brutal is this for Mike Pence. The name of the game for governors, Democrat or Republicans, it's always jobs or economic development. Put the politics aside. There are businesses like Apple, Salesforce, a number --

(CROSSTALK) KEILAR: This is so much bigger than an Indiana law. You're seeing Republicans being pulled on either direction on this. But my question would be, so they are not saying, OK, we support this law, but if some Republicans don't come out in opposition to it, does that hurt them in this election cycle?

ZELENY: Not in the short term. Not in the primary phase --

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: -- as they are trying to reach out to their base voters, and there's so many of them, they are trying to split that difference. But in a general election, no question, you cannot be for a candidate linked to something discriminatory. It doesn't work to broaden your base.

KEILAR: Yeah. Certainly not with the Dow youngsters out there.

All right, Jeff, Peter, thanks so much to both of you.

That's it for me.

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is next.

For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.