crisis. it is now over. 5-year-old ethan, the little boy's name, he's at a hospital. we found that out a few seconds ago. he's with his family. there's heavy security there as well tonight. and the big headline, he's safe. he was abducted from his school bus and held in an underground bunker for six days. we can also report that the kidnapper, 65-year-old jimmy lee dykes is dead. i want to get straight to martin savidge who is covering this story in midland city, alabama, about 100 miles south of montgomery. what more can you tell us about this little boy ethan and where he is and how he is tonight? >> we know he's surrounded by a very happy family. that would be his mother, his siblings, and extended family and we have been told that he is in good shape physically. of course, what's got to be determined is how is he doing mentally after this long ordeal. >> i know that's going to be a big question. there have been reports that the little boy may have had some sort of autism. that he really could have some psychological challenges to deal with. what do you know, martin, about how this rescue happened. why it happened today, and not three days ago? >> yeah, well, i guess the reason that authorities said to us is they noted in the last 24 hours, there had been a breakdown in the attitude of mr. dykes. they had been in constant contact, but they noticed he had deteriorated. they also said they saw him with a weapon in such a way they thought he was threatening and the biggest fear was for the 5-year-old boy. that's when they decided to act. there was an explosion, gunfire. we didn't hear it here, but i got calls from people in the area saying did you hear? something is up? and of course, something was up. >> just to belabor the point, they who killed him as opposed to jimmy lee dykes killing himself? >> that point, erin, is a good one, but it has not been fully clarified. we believe that is the way it went down. we're expecting a further update tonight, where they will go into details and take questions. we also note there were some assets of the u.s. military that were brought to bare. leon panetta personally approved the use of special equipment that apparently could be used like, say, for detecting ieds overseas. it was allowed to be used here. there were soldiers here. soldiers only used to operate the equipment, not in any way to go in with law enforcement. they don't have that power. >> how unusual is that, martin, that leon panetta of the defense department, that's the highest level of the american military system, would be involved in this? >> yeah, that's extremely unusual, you're right, erin. there were also reports of unmanned surveillance, drones, that have been used. that hasn't been concerned. but it gives you a sense there was from the highest levels a very strong commitment and feeling of sympathy for the little boy and trying to get it resolved in a way where he was safe and that's what happened. >> martin savidge, thank you very much. everyone i know has been talking about the little boy and what it was like for him down in the darkness in that bunker. i want to bring in a psychiatrist and director of children's services for l.a. county hospitals, along with tom fuentes, a contributor for us. we know the ending here now. at least before the child begins his healing process, the child is physically safe. the kidnapper is dead. how could investigators have accomplished this without harming the child? >> it would have taken a great deal of planning and still. in the case of the fbi hostage team, they plan full-time for these kinds of events. they worked with negotiators. the fbi negotiating team came in with the hostage team. they have worked together many times. they know what the capabilities are for each of their teams. and this planning would have begun from the first minute they arrived on the scene. because at the time, even from the beginning, the negotiators when they're establishing that line of communication, which they hope to be able to do as soon as possible, but when they establish that communication, the s.w.a.t. team has to immediately be prepared to do an assault and prepared to do a rescue in the event harm is happening to that boy. they don't have the luxury of sitting around for seven days and waiting until somebody decides. they have to be prepared from the first minute, 24 hours a day. that planning would have already gone on for a long time. from what i heard, the negotiations were starting to deteriorate. the mental attitude of dykes was starting to really get worse over the last couple of days. and the negotiators were becoming increasingly fearful that he saw no way out of this. that he knew he had committed a murder. he knows he's an old man and that he felt that he had no way to come out of this. and the fear would be, as we have seen in so many other situations, oftentimes the person commits suicide but then kills everybody around them in the process. that would have been the fear here, he might in the process of deciding to take his own life, take the boy's life first and then take his own. they just couldn't have that. >> i want to ask you something more about that in a moment. first, doctor, i want to ask you about ethan. obviously, he's physically okay, but he's 5 years old. he's going to have his 6th birthday on wednesday of this week. he's a little boy. he has asperger's syndrome. we are also told he has attention deficit disorder. psychologically, how is this going to affect the little boy over the long term? >> i think any ability in any trauma that happens to a child, whether they have a psychiatric or mental health problem or not is going to fall heavily on them. the biggest message we can send to this child by his mother and father is he is safe and he is protected because he didn't feel safe and he wasn't protected and he ended up in this situation. that's the biggest impact on a child, especially after something is resolved. luckily, this is successfully resolved. but safety and protection is key for him. >> and of course, we don't know at this point what happened? we don't know whether there was sexual abuse or physical abuse or what happened in the bunker. >> exactly. right. and i mean the tendency is going to be to swarm around him to get information, both to help him and to understand what went down, down under that ground. but the bottom line is, the next few days are critical for this boy to bond with his family, to feel safe and protected. >> so tom, i wanted to ask you a question when you were talking about the negotiators must have felt this was possibly going to end terribly, that the kidnapper could have killed the child and then killed himself, so they decided to intervene today. given that, how do you think this happened? as we're still trying to figure out whether jimmy lee dykes killed himself or whether law enforcement were able to successfully kill him before he could kill the child. >> the fact that you have so many witness accounts of hearing a loud explosion followed by multiple shots or some type of gunfire would indicate he didn't commit suicide. i don't think he would be able to kill himself too many times. so the standard procedure in an operation like this would be for the assault team to introduce a grenade simulator, commonly called a flash bang, and what that does is in a confined area like a bricked-in bunker, that bang is so loud that it literally just freezes the nervous system of somebody so for a second or more they can't move, they're frozen, and during that time, the assault team rushes in. by the time he's recovering from the noise, if he has a weapon in his hand or begins to turn with the weapon in his hand, they can take him out. >> in a nutshell, i don't understand. if that's possible, why not do that right away? why wait six days? who cares? i'm sorry, who cares if you get the guy alive? you want to save the child from the trauma. >> well, they do care if they get him alive. what they want to do is try to resolve this where everybody comes out of this alive, and the other thing that would be assessed and the s.w.a.t. team leader would be informed the on-scene commander from the beginning, they have formulated a plan, but what are the odds the plan would be successful. i can tell you having been a s.w.a.t. team member and a commander, the commander as well, that looking at pictures of that bunker, that was an extreme challenge. if i was the s.w.a.t. team leader making that plan, i would have informed the commander that this is going to be very difficult. the odds are not great. they're not up above 90% success. they're going to be somewhat lower than that, and who knows how low. if that commander on the first, second, third day decides that oh, we're going to go ahead. who cares if he dies? and the odds are that that boy ends up dead. you can't try to end this any sooner than you absolutely have to because of those risks to ethan. >> i understand, not as simple as i thought. thanks so much to both of you. we're going to have much more on the story later in the show. we'll be speaking to a woman who lived through a similar ordeal, taken on a school bus, buried underground 36 years ago. she and 25 other children were abducted and held captive in that gruesome way. plus, president obama says he goes skeet shooting all the time, and the white house has released one photo. did it do more damage than good? and the mystery of why this happened at the super bowl last night. we shed some light on the subject later in the show. hey, our salads. 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[ male announcer ] how about v8 v-fusion. a full serving of vegetables, a full serving of fruit. but what you taste is the fruit. so even you... could've had a v8. but what you taste all stations come over to mithis is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. how do you keep an older car running like new? you ask a ford customer. when they tell you that you need your oil changed you got to bring it in. if your tires need to be rotated, you have to get that done as well. jackie, tell me why somebody should bring they're car here to the ford dealership for service instead of any one of those other places out there. they are going to take care of my car because this is where it came from. price is right no problem, they make you feel like you're a family. get a synthetic blend oil change, tire rotation and much more, $29.95 after $10.00 rebate. if you take care of your car your car will take care of you. our second story "outfront," a picture is worth 1,000 words, or is it? the white house released this picture of president obama shooting skeet at camp david on his birthday in august. it was released nearly a week after his interview with the "new republic" in which he declared, quote, at camp david, we do skeet shooting all the time. that was met with skepticism, so the white house put out one photo, but it is too little too late. >> i don't understand. they should have put the picture out earlier. i don't know why they waited five days to put that out because it just rekindled the whole story. >> "outfront," cnn contributor david frahm and michael waldman. maybe president obama was hoping you both could help write his answers to the article. why do this? jay carney had to answer questions about this again. he told reporters the president made it clear, he grew up in hawaii, he spent time in california, chicago. this is not -- he never pretended to or suggested that he had grown up as a hunter. what is your reaction to that? it kind of brings it all back again. >> he was not hunting at harvard law. look, he kind of can't win or can't lose with this. he said, i think, very off the cuff, and honestly, yeah, we do skeet shooting. then people got hysterical, aha, he's lying, trying to pull a fast one. they released the photo. which is kind of funny, he looks really great doing the shooting, so that, of course, once again, he manages to look very cool in what he's doing. i don't think this is going to be -- >> he looks cool in everything he does. he's got that way about him. >> i don't think this is going to make that big of a difference. i think if he were seriously thinking about it in political terms, it's a signal of reassurance that he's not against all guns. he's culturally understanding that a lot of people in america hunt and use sporting rifles. but i don't think that's why they released the photo. i think they were just trying to be responsive, and you know, no good deed goes unpunished. >> david, what is interesting about this is so you have people on both sides who aren't satisfied. on the left, let me play what jon stewart had to say because i thought he said it pretty darn well. here he is. >> the point is, mr. president, what are you doing? why try? as far as your opponents go, no measure of detaunce will ingratiate you to your opponent, it's a fool's errand, as was best summed up in the dr. seuss classic, oh, the people who hate you. they don't like you shooting skeet, they do not like you eating meat. they do not like you drinking beer or even if you roped a steer. >> now we have his base is upset. why would you even think to put out this picture? >> jon stewart loves the president. look, 5% of americans over age 16 have a hunting license. hunting is a very minority and dwindling activity. it's an honored activity. it connects us deep to the american past. it's not what the gun debate is about. what the gun debate is about is the anxieties of middle-class, middle-aged americans about crime and insecurity. that's what the debate is about. so the president could -- he could disembowel a deer on naval television. it wouldn't make a difference. it's about fears and mayhem and crime. those who argue for more gun restrictions will say those fears are exaggerated. the country is safe. it'sever been safer. crime statistics are down. a gun in your house doesn't make your safe. it actually exposes your loved ones to greater harm of accident or suicide. if you're gone to engage the debate, you have to engage the debate where it is, and it is not about hunting deer or ducks. >> that's a fair point. >> it's interesting, when these debates happened 10 or 20 years ago, 2k5i6d david is exactly right. it was very much about the culture of the rural south being threatened. now it's about, as he says, a lot of these fears. but that's what's so interesting about the background check issue. back then, the nra said, no, no, no. don't ban assault weapons. let's just check and make sure that only law-abided citizens get guns. now that's what the white house or the president is proposing and all of a sudden, the nra is saying, no, no, no, it's a terrible idea. it's an interesting time. crime is so down, not just in new york but all over the country. it really has opened up a possibility for a little bit less emotion and a little more commonsense on criminal justice laws generally, but this kind of rips the band-aid off a lot of people's fears, a lot of which are pretty irrational. >> i want to play one quick sound bite and talk about whether the nra has gone too far on their side. and first, how did you say it? >> inchoate. >> i am never sure how to say it. i'm so glad we have speechwriters on the show. they can use vocabulary and expand all of our enunciations. let me explain the difference between the nra and chris wallace on fox news this weekend. >> the president's kids are safe, and we're all thankful for it. the point of thad ad -- >> they don't have to face a threat that most children do not face. >> tell that to children in newtown. >> you really think the president's children are the same kind of target as every school child in america. that's ridiculous and you know it, sir. >> david, chris wallace tells the nra you're ridiculous and you know it, you might have jumped the shark, if you're the nra. >> that's not what the polls are showing. there is tremendous sympathy for the nra and tremendous and rising, rising support for the most expansive vision of gun rights. that's the paradox. as americans become safer, as crime becomes less of a threat, americans seem to become more afraid and they turn to guns to make them safe. when they do that, they put their own children at risk of suicide and gun accidents. >> thanks very much to both of you. our third story "outfront" a change in tune. a catholic hospital's surprising defense in a wrongful death case involving unborn twin fetuses. lori was seven months pregnant when she went into cardiac arrest. she died and the twins died. when the husband sued the catholic hospital argued the fetuses were not people under colorado law. tonight the hospital in a surprising about face called its defense -- >> the statement we received today from catholic health initiatives is a complete reversal from what his attorneys have argued in court for years. in court, catholic health initiatives have argued twins do not count as people. that's a direct contradiction to church teachings. they didn't just argue this once the hospitals groups lawyers have argued this repeatedly. the case is waiting to be heard in colorado supreme court. after local newspapers and this program pointed out the hypocrisy. here is what catholic health initiatives or chi is saying today. chi representatives acknowledged that it was morally wrong for attorneys representing st. thomas moore hospital to site the state's wrongful death act in defense of this lawsuit. the statement goes on to mention that the hospital outfit will not site colorado's law that says fetuses are not people any more. why not? why now? the bishops say they weren't aware of what the lawyers were arguing. the bishop's say chi's upper management didn't know what it's own lawyers were arguing in court. after the news report, they say they became aware, they huddled and decided that the legal argument didn't align with church teachings. >> where does this lead the lawsuit? when you first aired this piece, i was moved by the father, jeremy talking, when you visited the cemetery with him when he was at the grave with his wife and children. what did he say to this news today? >> i did talk to jeremy today. he didn't know about the statement. i read it to him over the telephone. he said he was stunned saying he's in shock and added, wow! but here's what his attorney is saying. she says, this is a self-serving document. it is inaccurate as to how it characterize the decisions of the lower court and the petition of the supreme court. it does not appear to reflect a real investigation. and does nothing to address the harm done to jeremy. she adds she's disappointed and jeremy stodghill has not heard from the hospital or the bishops of colorado. >> thank you very much. still to come, the kidnapping and hostage story comes to an end in alabama. 36 years ago, there was a group of school children. they were on the bus, they got taken, they got held hostage under ground they survived. one of them joins us tonight. this weekend, one of america's most celebrated snipers who served four tours with 160 confirmed kills in iraq was murdered by someone he brought to a gun range. one of his closest friends comes out front to explain why he thought that was a good idea. did you just turn your ringer off so no one would interrupt and.us?one. oh no, i... just used my geico app to get a tow truck. it's gonna be 30 minutes. oh, so that means that we won't be stuck up here, for hours, with nothing to do. oh i get it, you wanna pass the time, huh. 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