Navy Yard Shooter Aaron Alexis Profiled
RALITSA VASSILEVA, HOST: Hello, everybody I'm Ralitsa Vassileva. Welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet. Security at a Navy base in Washington is called into question as investigators look for answers after a lone gunman carried out a deadly rampage there. A wife's quest for justice after her husband disappeared without a trace. Six Chinese party officials are accused of torturing him to death. We'll bring you that CNN exclusive. And the five year wait and of one of the biggest names in video games: Grand Theft Auto V is out. The U.S. capital is coming to terms with Monday's mass shooting. Less than 24 hours ago, a gunman turned Washington's Navy Yard into a nightmare. The rampage killed 12 people, civilians and military contractors. The shooter has been identified as a contractor himself, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis was also a former Navy reservist. Alexis was killed, though details remain unclear. Authorities are asking the public for more information about him. Forensic teams are combing the scene for clues. The Navy yard remains closed to all but essential personnel during that investigation. Now let's show you where that is in Washington. The Navy Yard is right in the heart of the U.S. capital. The White House sits less than 5 kilometers away, as you can see. Security is tight at the yard. It includes headquarters for the naval sea systems command, which is the largest of the navy's five system commands. About 3,000 people work there. The shooting happened at building 197. Police say Alexis used a valid pass to gain entry into the building. There is armed security at the door of that building and it's unclear how his guns got passed them. Jessica Yellin reports now on how the massacre unfolded.</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chaos and confusion across the nation's capital. 8:15 am, an emergency call reaches Washington police word of a shooter at the Navy Yard.</s>CHIEF CATHY LANIER, METROPOLITAN DC POLICE: Within literally two to three minutes, Metropolitan police officers were on the scene. Now internal security had already engaged -- identified and engaged the suspect. We already had victims down at that point.</s>YELLIN: Inside, witnesses say, a fire alarm is pulled, mayhem breaks out in building 197.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As he came around the corner, he aimed his gun at us, and he fired at least two or three shots.</s>TERRIE DURHAM, WITNESS: He was far enough down the hall that we couldn't see his face, but we could see him with the rifle and he raised and aimed at us and fired.</s>YELLIN: A maintenance worker warns this man of a shooter. And the next thing he knows...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's when he got shot. I'm fairly certain he was dead, because he was shot in the head.</s>YELLIN:  9: 09 am, the Navy alerts via Twitter one injury and orders the facility's 3,000 employees to shelter in place. 11:53, a Navy official says a suspected shooter is dead. 12:15, the Washington police chief announces shocking news, possibly two other shooters are on the loose.</s>LANIER: One being a white male who was last scene around 8:35, 8:40 this morning in a khaki tan military uniform.</s>YELLIN: Later, federal officials would say they believe there was only one shooter. 12:30 pm the president expresses his horror.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are confronting yet another mass shooting. And today it happened on a military installation in our nation's capital.</s>YELLIN:  4: 00 pm, almost eight hour after that first emergency call, a break the FBI releases the name of the shooter, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, a military contractor from Texas. Washington's mayor announces a terrible new number, 13, including the shooter, dead. And he speaks to what's on so many people's minds.</s>VINCENT GRAY, WASHINGTON MAYOR: We don't have any reason at this stage to suspect terrorism, but certainly it has not been ruled out.</s>YELLIN: Officials tell CNN the shooter was a military contractor, which could help explain how he accessed the secure facility. But they say his motive is still a mystery. Jessica Yellin, CNN, Washington.</s>VASSILEVA: So many questions are being asked about security at the facility. Let's bring in now Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with more on that. Barbara, so how was he able to get inside with all these guns?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ralitsa, this is one of the key questions federal investigators are working around the clock to solve, raising that key question all over again one more time, could something, should something have been done differently?</s>STARR (voice-over): Heavily armed security personnel swarmed the Washington Navy Yard within minutes of the first shot. It's the deadliest military workplace shooting since the 2009 mass shooting at Ft. Hood that killed 13. Raising questions on how it could have happened yet again at a military installation in the U.S. Navy Commander Tim Jirus saw one worker shot.</s>CMDR. TIM JIRUS, NAVY YARD SHOOTING WITNESS: I think right now a lot of people are wondering, you know, just how safe the building is or how safe the office environment is.</s>STARR: Many of the security measures at the Navy Yard are similar to other bases. Captain Mark Vandroff spelled out the security procedures for Wolf Blitzer.</s>CAPT. MARK VANDROFF, U.S. NAVY: You should present credentials. Your DOD common access card to an armed security guard who then clears you on to the base. Then, to get into building 197, there's armed security at the door of the building.</s>STARR: Contractors are also scrutinized.</s>VANDROFF: But you go past armed security guards and then your credentials are computer read and there's a kiosk you go through and it either gives you a green or a red light. But the green light shows that your credentials are recognized as someone who is supposed to be in that building.</s>STARR: Not clear yet, did the suspect, Aaron Alexis, have wide-ranging access because he was an I.T. contractor? But everyone, including visitors, are subject to random searches. One security expert says, just like Ft. Hood, however, security fundamentally is not likely to change.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Security is a balance between total safety and freedom, right? So you have to provide some level in the middle so that people can actually get to work.</s>STARR: And Ralitsa, one additional detail emerging, a government audit did find, according to federal sources CNN has spoken to, that navy installations may have cut some corners on security access for contractors in order to save money. This government audit looking at a very specific program on how contractors are cleared. Early days, yet, to get all the details on that, but we also know that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel now is very likely to have the department take another look at access and security clearances for the thousands of contractors that work at military installations -- Ralitsa.</s>VASSILEVA: Very important to do. Barbara Starr for the Pentagon, thank you very much. Well, now turning to an unprecedented operation off the coast of Italy. The capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship has been successfully pulled upright in what one official calls a perfect operation. This time lapse video we want to show you now, it shows you the painstaking process step by step, degree by degree, which took place all day on Monday. You can see the ship being lifted there. And it's now sitting upright. Hundreds of people were involved in uprighting this ship. But it took just 12 technicians to actually carry out what is an engineering feat never done before with such a heavy ship. And this video is now showing the part of the Costa Concordia which was submerged. You see that there's quite a change from the ship's formally sparkling white exterior. 20 months underwater certainly hasn't done it any good. We see also damage there from the rocks. And you see it's dirty and quite damaged there. And there -- that's the ship upright. It will eventually be taken away to be scrapped. For more on that, senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is joining us now live from Giglio Island. So Matthew, what's the next step?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the next step Ralitsa is that the salvage workers that are congratulating themselves, essentially, and be congratulated by the islanders here, for the great job they did in getting the Costa Concordia upright. They're now working hard to stabilize that structure, because even though it looks like it's OK sitting over there, in fact it's delicately balanced on an underwater platform that was constructed. It was tilted up sort of onto that platform. It's also still for the most part underwater. Two-thirds of that ship is still under the sea. It's actually 55 meters tall. By far the biggest ship that's ever been salvaged in this way, twice as big as the titanic. For instance, 114,000 tons of metal. So a very difficult operation, a very dangerous one as well, not least from an environmental point of view, because inside the Costa Concordia up 20,000 gallons of highly toxic liquids -- we're talking not just fuel and oil from the engines, but also chemicals used for the cleaning of the boat that was carried on the voyage there, the food stuffs that have rotted from the food for more than 4,200 people for 10 days was on board. It had only just left port when it hit the rocks here at Giglio. So a lot of food stuff has mixed with the salt water over the 20 months that it's been laying there, created this really noxious, toxic mix of chemicals inside. So it was a big environmental hazard. The salvage operators, salvage workers have succeed in avoiding that liquid being spilled out into this pristine marine environment. So that's another big reason why they're being congratulated so much here today -- Ralitsa.</s>VASSILEVA: Yeah, that's certainly unprecedented. And speaking though of the next step, the ship actually will not be towed until next summer, right?</s>CHANCE: Yeah, the first step has already happened, it's been turned upright. Now they're going to stabilize it, then they're going to eventually float it. You know, there are still 30 meters of that ship still under water, as I mentioned. They have to float it up to a point where it will be able to be towed to a shipbreaking yard that will then be broken down into pieces and sold off for scrap essentially. The other operation that's got to be performed is a bit more of a grizzly one, which is of the 32 people that were killed when this ship hit the rocks here in Giglio in January 2012, only 30 bodies were recovered. There were another two bodies out there somewhere. And it's believed, or it's hoped, that they might be onboard the ship somewhere. And so before the ship it towed away, of course, and in the next few days perhaps, they're going to be looking for those bodies that may have been trapped in the crumpled wreckage in some way. And so that will be one grizzly task that also has to be done.</s>VASSILEVA: And how are the locals reacting to this? Certainly they are getting their town back slowly. And this must be a big relief.</s>CHANCE: Yeah, a huge sense of relief amongst the townspeople here. It's an island of just 1,000 people. So it's a very small island most of the time. It's a big tourist attraction. It depends for its income on its pristine waters and its tourist trade. And of course what the locals were most concerned about is that some of those toxic materials inside the ship would spill out, would cause irreparable damage to the sort of pristine environments around here. That would have ruined their livelihood essentially It's also the sense that this eyesore of this wrecked ship on their coastline will soon, at least by next year, be out of the way. And so, yes, a huge sense of relief amongst the people of Giglio that this wreckage, this terrible chapter in their history may soon be coming to an end.</s>VASSILEVA: And so, Matthew, tell us a little bit about the planning, what it took to get to this point.</s>CHANCE: Oh, an enormous amount of planning took place. I mean, the technological -- the technical, rather, aspects of this salvage operation were really unprecedented, as I say. No ship of this size has been raised in the same way that the Costa Concordia was. A huge infrastructure has been built around it. It was on its side. You can see from the pictures of the ship where the water marks of the course of the past 20 months have stained the entire side of the ship. It was lying on its side. We've seen those time lapse pictures, which really show how it was tilted on one side, a platform tilt it upright. A platform has been built on the seabed and then floatation devices were put underneath it and 50 chains, really heavy, thick chains used to slowly inch by inch pull it upright. It then came down to rest on that platform on the seabed. So an enormous technical task, which, you know, appears to have gone off without a hitch, Ralitsa.</s>VASSILEVA: Absolutely. Matthew Chance on Giglio Island, thank you very much. And it was relief all around for the Concordia's salvage team. Here's what salvage master Nicholas Sloane had to say after he and his team pulled that ship upright.</s>NICHOLAS SLOANE, CONCORDIA SALVAGE MASTER: I think we need to get some sleep, but we'll have a quick beer and then maybe tomorrow we'll have a barbecue.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you proud of what you did?</s>SLOANE: Yeah. I think the whole team is proud of what they achieved, because a lot of people said it couldn't be done. And that's what's nice about the challenge.</s>VASSILEVA: That was salvage master Nicholas Sloane talking about how the salvage crew plan to celebrate this successful operation, but the huge task of removing and scraping the ship, as Matthew was telling us, is far from over. You're watching CNN News Stream. Still to come on our show, we'll take you inside this lab in The Netherlands where scientists has crucial evidence from the chemical attack in Syria. Residents evacuating in the U.S. state of Colorado where deadly flooding has left thousands stranded. And years in the making, gamers finally get their hands on Grand Theft Auto V. We will tell you about reaction a little bit later in our program.