want to come to us. they were fearful. and they were in the back hallway area. and that actually heightened my concern and my fear that potentially the suspects were in that hallway holding them hostage and waiting for us to enter into the hallway. we had to tell them several times come to us, come to us. and ultimately they did. and once that first person took the motions forward, it opened the floodgates and everybody wanted to come and get away from that as quickly as possible. we can't panic in those situations. these people have dealt with enough. the last thing they need to see is their police officers panicking. >> was it silent in there? or did you hear screams? >> it was extremely loud. the fire alarms were going off. there were people who were obviously injured and obviously in great amounts of pain. that was evidence in the moans and the wails we were hearing in the room. it was very loud in the room. and we also had fire sprinklers going off inside the room. that was adding to the chaos. >> and immediately trying to offer information about the shooters or did you get a sense to realize what had just happened? >> my primary goal was to find out how many and where they were. and i was asking individuals, but again, panic was obvious and apparent, so we weren't getting a lot of information in regards to that. >> did you find the -- did your team find the bomb? >> no. our team did not find any of the explosive devices. those were found later. >> the room that there was a holiday party, were there decorations, food, tables, chairs? >> that sums it up. yes, it was. it's a fairly large meeting room. and i noticed upon entry that there's a christmas tree in there. all of the tables were decorated for a christmas party. and it just -- it just seemed so senseless that here's people going into their holiday festivities and now we were dealing with that. >> you talked about the training that you have. but how do you stay calm? do you take deep breaths going in there? did you think about it? did you feel the adrenaline going through your system? >> i'm sure i did. but you can't let your emotions override your judgment, and you need to do the job that we're supposed to do. it's what we're trained to do. >> what has it been like over the last day and a half? [ inaudible ] but you, yourself, and the other responding officers. >> you know, i've tried to make a point of those officers that i knew were some of the initial guys in with us, which there were many officers who did extraordinary jobs yesterday for our department and also for all of the agencies who responded so quickly. it was truly overwhelming to see all the agencies that got here and got here in a hurry to provide us assistance because just like i said, i was sensing that this was a true event. they had the same sense. and they got here and nobody hesitated. people knew what their job was, and their job was to try to bring some calm to chaos. so it's one of those things. we -- i've gone around. i've tried to contact our officers. i tried to assess how they're doing. talk a little bit about it. and in doing that maybe that's helping me a little bit as well. so i think we'll all work through it together. >> there's a video showing the incredible courage of an officer who's helping people trying to get out saying i will take a bullet before you do, i'm sure of it. was that you? and if not, who was that? and can you -- >> no, i'd like to think i was that cool. but no. unfortunately, that wasn't. i don't know that that officer has been officially identified as of yet, but i'm told he's one of sheriff mcmahon's folks. but again, i haven't had that confirmed. >> what was your reaction when you saw that? >> i'm sorry? >> what was your reaction when you saw that video? >> i saw that everywhere yesterday. that was what was happening everywhere during this event. >> could you address the pride that you felt with the men and women and the manner in which they acted in that scene yesterday, and can you just address how you felt about those men and women that were under your command? >> you know, we've taken a lot of hits lately. some justified. much of it not justified. and it takes a toll. it takes a toll on all cops because it's hard being -- it's hard being labeled and hard being branded as, you know, being rogue or, you know -- and i guarantee you that no cop comes into this job with the mindset oh, great, now i have ultimate power to be corrupt and to violate people's rights. there are cops who go astray. but overwhelmingly, the vast majority of officers, and when i say vast majority i'm talking 99.5% of the officers go out and they do the job to protect the public. and yesterday just reminded me of that. and it just solidified that again in my heart and in my mindset. and for that i'm -- for that i'm thankful. >> we're going to take two more questions. >> you were on patrol that day. what did you hear from the residents -- obviously this is sinking in with a lot of people in this community. what have they told you? >> you know, not just myself but every officer who i'm encountering right now is getting the same kind of positive encouragement and support because again, i think this -- we can never underlie the tragedy that befell the city and so many families yesterday. but there is support for law enforcement. >> was there a moment when you realized the threat you were facing had a level of sophistication, that they had some level of training? and just to follow up on that, did they leave anything behind in the way of a manifesto or any notes? >> it was pretty clear when we knew we had an active shooter and when we saw the severity and the amount of carnage upon our initial entry that this was -- that this wasn't just a rogue individual. there was something more. so as far as us finding any kind of manifesto, no, sir. i don't have any information in regards to that. >> thank you. >> real quickly, mike made reference early on that this was hard to believe that this was happening in his town. mike was raised in this town, went to high school in this town, spent the majority of his law enforcement career in this town. it's genuine when he says that, that he felt that this was his town being attacked. so with that, thank you for being here, folks. we will be back in the morning for another press conference. and i believe somebody from the sheriff's department might stand by to talk about the photos and get the digital images. thank you very much, folks. >> we're expecting that to be the last official delivery of information this evening from local authorities and in fact federal law enforcement authorities on scene in san bernardino tonight. i'm rachel maddow at msnbc headquarters in new york. thank you for being with us tonight. that was a briefing which is very different from the other briefings that we've had from law enforcement. the first difference is it started with a short but serious statement from the governor of california, governor of california jerry brown addressing reporters briefly saying we will go as far as we have to to make sure public safety is protected. we also heard from the district attorney, who talked about working with federal prosecutors as well. we did get some new information from the san bernardino county police chief. but the -- and i'll talk about that in just one second. the bulk of what we just heard, though, was a remarkable first-person account from a san bernardino police lieutenant named mike madden who was the first police officer obscene. we've not previously had him made available in terms of talking to the press. but he just told a remarkable personal story about being literally the first responder to this event. he's a lieutenant in the san bernardino police department. he said one of his responsibilities at the department is that he oversees dispatch. so he oversees the whole system of sending officers out to potential crime scenes in that community. and he said because of his role in overseeing dispatch he could tell by ear, he could tell from the voices and the tone that was being used by the people who were working in the dispatch center that something very serious was under way. he was only about a mile away from the scene when those calls came out. again, he said he just personally recognized that this was going to be a big deal. he immediately went to the scene. he was the first one there. and then he just gave this remarkable recounting of the decision-making process that he alone had to go through, and then he and the other officers that arrived soon after he did in terms of honestly having to walk around and choose to not help people who were hurt and who were calling out for help and who needed help. but they were trained. he's actually cited the columbine incident specifically. he said they were trained after that incident that what you need to do is not attend to the victims there. you need to find the threat and stop the threat. he said they believed at that time when they entered the scene that there were still according to reports between one and three shooters still inside. he said he had heard reports that there had been assailants who potentially left the scene in a black suv, they had heard those responses but he didn't know especially because there might have been multiple assailants if some people who were still inside who were the bad actors, the people who had caused this event. he said knowing that they had to walk past people who were hurt, people who were wounded in order to try to clear the scene, in order to try to find out fw the shooters were still there. specifically, he talked about two i found very moving instances. one was the difficulty of trying to persuade the survivors, the people who had just gone through this gun massacre, trying to persuade them that it was same to come to police officers, that they could leave the back hall or the other areas of that building where they had hidden or they had ended up as survivors from that scene. it was hard as police officers to persuade people it was safe to come with them as officers in order to get out of there. the other thing he described was just the sensory experience of being in there, the loudness of it. we had heard from law enforcement earlier in the day that one of the things that complicated that as a scene that needed to be cleared and ultimately as a scene that needs to be investigated was that the fire sprinklers went off. we don't exactly know why. the police chief had earlier speculated that it's possible some element of the sprinkler system had been hit by a bullet and maybe that set it off. but for whatever reason, as this officer described, again, lieutenant mike madden who was first on the scene, he said those fire alarms were going off and the sprinklers were going off, and people were screaming in pain who had been hurt. we now know 21 people had been hurt. that was -- it didn't necessarily add to the bullet points of factual information that we had about exactly what happened here and why it may have happened but that was the most remarkable first-person account we've heard from any law enforcement officer who's been involved in this at all. in terms of the new information we've just been given, and again, we don't expect a further briefing from law enforcement tonight, the san bernardino police chief who's done so much of this briefing, police chief jarrod burguan from san bernardino, he gave some very specific new information tonight. first they did release some new pictures, pictures that were recovered from the scene of the shootout we believe with officers. as you can see there, some of the images they're releasing to the public right now as we speak are of weapons that were recovered at the scene. we believe those to be the weapons used by the shooters at the inland regional center. they were recovered at that suv. both long guns and handguns. you see extra magazines there. also pictures of the vehicle in which those suspects engaged in this incredibly intense shootout with police. we've been told that a lot of ammunition was recovered at the scene. that obviously would be some of that ammunition. so they're releasing those pictures. they were also able to be specific about the event that was the site of the shooting. the police chief saying just tonight that it was a department of public health event. so this was a san bernardino county of public health event. and there had been conflicting reports about whether this was some sort of meeting or whether it was a banquet or whether it was a holiday party. we now know it was a little bit of each. as the police chief described it, it was sort of training in the morning that was transitioning to a holiday party in the afternoon. we also for the first time have some numbers in terms of the number of people who may have been on scene. we've been told the room in which the massacre happened held something like 200 or 250 people in terms of its capacity. we hadn't previously known how many people might have been in that room. and by extension what proportion of those people were hurt or wounded -- hurt or killed. we now know according to the police chief that there were 91 invited guests at that event and they had some sort of sign-in sheet to check people in as they arrived. 91 people were invited. they believe somewhere between 71 and 80 people were in the room when the shooting actually happened. of that number of people we now know a significant proportion were killed or wounded. again, if there were 80 people in that room and we're talking about 14 people killed and 21 people wounded, 35 people out of 80 being shot is remarkable. in terms of the people who were killed and who were wounded, we do also have some -- we have names of the victims in terms of those who were killed that we'll be talking about a little later on tonight. but we were also told for the first time tonight the proportion of them who were county employees. there were 14 people killed in total. 12 of the 14 were san bernardino county employees. of the people who were wounded, we know there were 21 people wounded. 18 of the 21 people wounded were also san bernardino county employees. so you think about this as a tragedy of national, potentially international proportions, but it is also in one very specific way a very, very devastating local event. joining us live from the scene now in san bernardino is nbc news correspondent chris jansing, who was at this press conference that just wrapped up a few moments ago and who's been on the scene all day. chris, thank you very much for being with us. i appreciate it. >> happy to be here. >> that summary that i just gave of what we learned from the press conference tonight, is that basically it in terms of new information? have we learned anything tonight in this press conference and from other sources tonight that is new? >> reporter: i think what we have heard here really, rachel, and you hit on it, is in addition to people who were killed and those who were wounded there are a lot of victims here and some of them are the people who had to go into that room and make those stuff decisions. this is something that they will live with for the rest of their lives, as the families of the victims will, as this entire community will. a phrase that he used that really struck me was that his job was to try to bring calm to the chaos. and he did in such a sort of calm way express what a horrifying scene it was that immediately, when he went in there, he recognized that it was as horrible as they thought it was, that immediately they realized that people had died. and he described the other people as being in a case of pure panic. and you mentioned that so many police officers, but this one in particular said after columbine we were trained for this. they tried to give you a sense of even the smells and the sounds of what it's like and nothing can prepare you for this. and i was at columbine. and since then i've been to a lot of these, unfortunately. charleston very recently and aurora. and arizona. and the stories from these first responders are remarkably the same, that what they enter is a place of horror that is absolutely indescribable. the decisions that they have to make are truly matters of life and death. and just being able to convince people. and i've talked to so many people who have been in that situation where they're being told it's okay now, you can come out and you can just imagine the abject terror that they're feeling in a situation like this. so for me to hear something like that in a situation like a press conference. and two other quick things that struck me. one, when they gave those numbers. 14 victims but 12 of them were employees. and you know, there's been a story over the last 24 hours about how they realize when he left he left his jacket behind. they knew him, and he knew them. this wasn't somebody walking into a place and just opening fire on nameless, essentially faceless people. these were his co-workers. these were people he knew. and he also said what struck him was that there were christmas decorations. there was a tree. there were decorations on the table. and i can tell you that when i went to newtown, when i passed the sign that said newtown, the first thing i noticed is houses decorated for christmas. and what came to mind at that moment was there are presents under trees that children will never hope. and i think in this season i can see where this officer and the other first responders who had to go into that room, the juxtaposition of the celebratory nature of the decorations and the horror of what happened there was intense and something that they'll be dealing with obviously for a very long time, rachel. >> chris jansing in san bernardino. chris, thank you very much for that. i know it's still a long night ahead of reporting. thank you, chris. i appreciate it. i will say that what chris was just describing there, of hearing the i'm type of accounts from first responders, what people talk about in situations like this, whether or not the shooting is ongoing when they don't know if the shooting is ongoing. the decisions they have to make to walk past people who are hurt and who want help, we heard that just recently in paris. you may remember that remarkable interview that lester holt did with the s.w.a.t. team captain, the commando french police captain who was wearing a ski mask when he was talking to him. and even that veteran of many elite commando-style raids talking about how devastating it was for him to have to step over people who were hurt and needed help and were asking for help. and you could potentially help them. but more than that, you had to stop the event from being an ongoing event. more than that, you had to find the shooter and stop them. it's an american -- it's an aspect of american law enforcement as this lieutenant said tonight. since columbine they train that way. but they train that way with these elite forces around the globe too because that's the way they have to do it. and it has a human toll on police just like it does -- just like it would on anyone. we're getting an important i think picture of that tonight. but we're also still getting new information including on this -- i don't want to say all-important but this incredibly important question of motive. and about the links of these suspects in this shooting, the suspects who have died, who have been found in the suv, the links between them and other people in the world who may have inspired this, other people in the world who may have been involved in purchasing any of these weapons. a lot on the investigation side of this is still very, very important stuff that we've mostly still got questions about and we've got the latest on that investigation with nbc's pete williams right after this. please stay with us. >> i'll tell you that it was something that although we trained for it it's something you're never actually prepared for. when we got the call -- i oversee dispatch. it's one of my functions and responsibilities with the police department. and i know my dispatchers. i know the tone of their voice. i know the severity of calls as they're going out. and i could hear it in our dispatcher's voice, that this was actually happening, this was a real event, and it was the event that we have an active shooter and we have an active shooter going on in our city. who wants to try? before earning enough cash back from bank of america to stir up the holidays, before earning 1% cash back everywhere, every time and 2% back at the grocery store, even before they got 3% back on gas, all with no hoops to jump through, daniel, vandi, and sarah decided to use their bank americard cash rewards credit card to sweeten the holiday season. that's the spirit of rewarding connections. apply online or at a bank of america near you. in these kind of vicious brutal acts we'll spare nothing in bringing them to justice and protecting the people along the way. so i don't know what this means going forward, but i think we have to be on our guard. we can't take anything for granted. and i just want to assure my fellow citizens here in california that we're going to go just as far as we have to to make sure that public safety is protected. >> california governor jerry brown speaking just moments ago, saying we're going to go as far as we have to to make sure public safety is protected, saying we will spare nothing in terms of bringing them to justice. we don't know what he means by that. i'm not sure what he means by that. at this point what we're getting is statements of resolve. we're not getting statements about what's next. but what we know about the investigation into this crime is next here on this show with nbc's pete williams. please stay with us. nexium 24hr is the new #1 selling frequent heartburn brand in america. i hope you like it spicy! get complete protection with the purple pill. the new leader in frequent heartburn. that's nexium level protection. at this hour we still have an incomplete picture of the suspects and their motives. in terms of what we do know we know they have at least four guns, we know they had a ton of ammunition both on them when they were killed and also inside a residence in redlands, california that investigators are still combing through. at the scene of the shooting in san bernardino yesterday morning and at that same residence we also know they had assembled numerous pipe bombs, although we don't know much about the sort of quality and character of those bombs, we just know there were 12 of them at that house and one of them that appears to be three pipe bombs strung together in some way that did not explode at the site of the shooting. we also know the suspects had traveled internationally fairly recently. there are also now indications that at least one of the suspects may have been radicalized in some way. i can't be more specific about that but joining us now is nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, who's been following this investigation very closely. pete, what can you tell us about the investigation, particularly into radical ties from one or both of these suspects? >> right. well, law enforcement officials are not saying at this point whether either of these two people were, quote unquote, radicalized. what they do know is syed farook was in touch by electronic means, by the cell phone, by telephone, by social media, with people who had radical jihadist views, both in the u.s. and overseas. some of these people had gone on and off the list of people that the fbi and local law enforcement had been keeping an eye on over the years. in some cases it was sort of a glancing kind of conversation. in some cases it may have been more extensive. but did that indicate a -- just seeking out like-minded individuals, or was that something that moved them toward a more radical philosophy? they have no idea of that yet. so if he was radicalized, if this was radical jihadism brought to the u.s., where did that come from? they don't know the answer to that. they don't know whether it was through the internet, as some people have become radicalized. they don't know whether it was on foreign travel. he'd been to saudi arabia twice. he'd been to pakistan at least once. they just don't know. that is one of the main reasons why they're not saying whether this was an act of terrorism or some kind of -- something else. >> should we expect those people he was in contact with are now going to be questioned, are going to be contacted in some way, be brought into the investigation by u.s. authorities? >> you certainly should. and some of them already have been. in some cases the fbi has determined that nothing much happened there. but that's one of the lines of inquiry. another is the electronic devices themselves. did they find things that were downloaded on the internet in for example, if you think about the boston marathon bombing investigation, officials made much of the fact that the tsarnaev brothers had downloaded copies of the al qaeda magazine "inspire." they believe that's where they got the instructions to build their bombs. now, you mentioned the remote-controlled device that was three pipe bombs taped together that the police say was left in the conference room that was attacked. they say that had a remote-controlled detonator made from parts of a model car. and the remote controller in the car also was that same kind of model car remote control. the recipe to build that is very similar to what the tsarnaev brothers used for their remote detonator from an issue of the al qaeda magazine "inspire." so did syed farook get his recipe for that from inspire? that's a possibility they're looking at. was there some place to find those same instructions that wasn't in a jihadist kind of a circuit? they're looking at that as well. >> in terms of cell phones and computers and anything else that was obtained here, i'm thinking particularly from that house in redlands if that was in fact where they were residing or at least where they were working, do we know anything in terms of the timing, when that stuff will be turned around, how quickly the fbi works on stuff like that? >> well, it can happen very fast. except we've been told that they intentionally tried to damage some of these things. they were damaging hard drives, smashing cell phones. so it's going to slow that process down considerably. now, they've shipped a lot of that material back. they've got airplanes that are taking material every day, sometimes twice a day, from san bernardino to the fbi lab here in suburban washington where they have some experience at looking at damaged computer parts to see if they can recover data. it doesn't always work, but sometimes it can be successful. someone thinks they've rendered their hard drive inoperable. well, they can figure out ways to recover some of the data. it's not easy. and the main thing is it takes a lot more time. so to answer your question, it's going to take longer. >> nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. totally indispensable, as usual, in situations like this. pete, thank you very much. >> okay. you bet. >> we're going to have more on the mass shooting in san bernardino, what else is going on in the world, straight ahead. stay with us. i got a job! i'll be programming at ge. oh i got a job too, at zazzies. 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just getting under way. in san bernardino. you're looking at live pictures from what is expected to be the largest vigil of the night. this is a stadium in san bernardino called san manuel stadium. that vigil tonight, it's a stadium that holds about 4,000 people. you can see it's filling up quickly. that vigil tonight is being hosted by the city itself. that's in addition to a number of other smaller vigils and memorials under way at local churches as well as a nearby mosque. all in honor of the 14 people killed and the 21 people hurt in yesterday's attack. one of the new pieces of information we've received tonight is the names of all 14 people who were killed in this attack. those names have now all been released by the county coroner. larry daniel kaufman. he apparently ran the coffee shop at the inland regional center, which is where the attack happened. damian meins, employee of the san bernardino county of environmental health. sierra claiborn. she'd been working with the county and environmental health department since 2013. nicholas thalasinos. he was a county health inspector. michael weel worked as a supervising environmental health specialist with the county. bennetta betbadal, she was a county health inspector. robert adams was an environmental health specialist with the county. the other victims, their names we have are shannon johnson, aurora godoy, isaac amanios, harry bowman, yvette velasco, tim nguyen, juan espinoza. 14 people killed in this attack altogether. 21 wounded. and as we have just learned this hour, of the 14 people killed 12 of them, 12 of the 14 were employees of the county of san bernardino. of the 21 people wounded 18 of them were county employees as well. ono off-days, or downtime.ason. opportunity is everything you make of it. this winter, take advantage of our season's best offers on the latest generation of cadillacs. the 2016 cadillac srx. get this low-mileage lease from around $339 per month, or purchase with 0% apr financing. 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disciplined approach remains. global markets may be uncertain... but you can feel confident in our investment experience around the world. call us or your advisor... t. rowe price. invest with confidence. as i was looking and seeing all of the activity and trying to assess what was happening, i was informed that that was the location where this was happening and i was king for officers to respond as quickly as possible because we had every belief at that time we had people still actively being shot inside of the building. my goal was to assemble an entry team and enter into the building to engage the active shooter. >> san bernardino police lieutenant mike madden, who was the first officer on scene, who gave a remarkable first-person account tonight of having been the first law enforcement officer on scene, what he encountered when he got inside the scene of that mass shooting yesterday. joining us now is jack dolan, an investigative reporter for the "new york times." he's been among other things look into the backgrounds of the two suspects and trying to answer some of the unknown knowns here. jack dolan, thank you very much for being with us. >> good evening. >> one of the things i wanted to ask but specifically was the guns. we're told that there were four guns recovered from the two suspects deceased in the suv. they believe they were all purchased legally and they said two of the guns were purchased by one of the names suspects who's deceased. are we any closer to knowing who the other legal furrier was of the other guns and how those guns might have made it to these suspects? >> no, not so far tonight. but the primary shooter, alleged shooter, syed farook, there was nothing in his background that would have prevented him from buying a gun legally. he had a really, really mundane record here in southern california. so nothing would have stopped him. and then his wife, tashfeen, i mean, she's such a recent arrival that public records usually don't turn up anything on somebody like that. we have as much access to them as frankly the people doing criminal background checks in california. and there would be knock in either of their backgrounds that we can see that would have prevented it. >> that doesn't necessarily mean that they were trying to evade a background check system that they would have passed anyway. it's possible they had a private sale of some kind because they found guns they wanted cheaply for sale somewhere else. in terms of figuring out whether or not there is ties to terrorism, ties to radical extremists of some kind, do you have any sense of what direction the investigation is going or if there's anything that's loan about them from the local community and either of their backgrounds that's been a real red flag so far? >> well, what we know from federal officials is that syed farook made two trips overseas to saudi arabia in the last couple of years. one was to go to the hajj in mecca, and other was just last year to go pick up the woman he'd met online and that he planned to marry. so there's nothing in that inherently that's a red flag, but certainly last night when my colleague and i, steven caesar, were reaching out to employees of the san bernardino health department, trying to find anybody who might have witnessed it, we happened upon people who were not only sitting at the table with him at that party where the shooting occurred but they were also -- one was his cubicle mate. another sat like four feet away. and they were telling us, well, he's muslim, but he's not devout, he's not evangelical. he doesn't proselytize. but he did, by the way, make a trip to saudi arabia to pick up, you know, a woman he'd never met and bring her back as his wife. and the fact that she was a part of this shooting, i mean, women just are not -- you don't want to be sexist, but women are not generally part of mass shootings. >> right. >> so you can certainly see why the fbi is looking into her background. >> jack dolan, investigative reporter for the "l.a. times." thank you for your time tonight, and thanks for your reporting. we've all been following it very closely. thanks, jack. we've got more ahead on this and other matters. stay with us. ♪ ♪ it's the final countdown! ♪ ♪ the final countdown! if you're the band europe, you love a final countdown. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. having one tool to get the job done helps you work smarter. craftsman tools have a long history of making tool sets that help you move from job to job without skipping a beat. like this 42 piece 3/8 inch drive bit socket set. no need for all those hex keys anymore, this ratchet set does it all. with all these bit sockets and an extension on the ratchet, i can get into all of the tough to reach places. saving my knuckles, and saving time. with this set, i have all the tools i need to get the job done quickly. no more hex keys. just get this handy 42 pc set, and get it now at 70% off, for only $29.99. and craftsman hand tools are protected by a lifetime full warranty. this holiday season craftsman tools are the perfect gift for the one who keeps things moving around your house. november 2009 u.s. army ranger nidal hassan opened fire. he at fort hood in texas. he killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. but then two years after that, two years after that very high-profile attack, you might remember there was another plot against ft. hood by another u.s. soldier. >> law enforcement officials say an army private who wanted out of the service because he's a muslim plotted this attack, saying he wanted to "get even with the military for the fighting in iraq and afghanistan." investigators say his targets were fellow soldiers at the army sprawling ft. hood. texas police revealed today that they arrested private first class nasser jason abdu at a motel yesterday in fort hood. in his room atf agents found enough explosives to make at least two time bombs. the police chief called abdu very dangerous. >> so in the summer of 2011 the would-be attacker of fort hood planned on setting off bombs at restaurants near that army base that were popular with soldiers. he aroused suspicion by paying cash for a large amount of gunpowder and ammunition at a local gun store. the gun store owner called police. police ended up tailing the guy to a hotel room where he was staying, and that was fortuitous. >> officers tracked the young soldier to this nearby hotel. in his room, all of that ammo, a pistol, the components to make two bombs, and a backpack with jihadi literature, including an article from the al qaeda online magazine "inspire." its title, "how to make a bomb in your kitchen." >> the attack in that case was foiled by police. that was july of 2011. then just a few months later a story with a similar theme. although this time the target was new york city. >> police say if pimentel had been able to build and place the bombs this tape of an nypd test shows damage he could have caused. at a sunday night news conference new york city officials showed a mockup of the devices. some ingredients bought at local stores with the help of an nypd informant. and police say pimentel was following bomb-making instructions straight out of al qaeda's "inspire" magazine. >> again, instructions straight out of al qaeda's magazine. the criminal complaint in that case, november 2011, laid out step by step just how closely that would-be bomber in new york city followed the instructions in the al qaeda magazine. then new york city, boston 2011 was not a guy plotting a shooting spree. it was a guy plotting to use pipe bombs to wreak havoc in the city. then two years later in april 2013 it was the boston marathon bombing. and that attack is mostly remembered for the pressure cooker bombs that were planted near the finish line that attack is mostly remembered for the pressure cooker bombs planted at the finish line. they injured up to 300 people. but the boston marathon attack also included homemade pipe bombs. >> jurors saw firsthand the type of explosives that were used. state police bomb technician robert mccarthy told the jury robots were used to use three devices found in watertown that did not detonate. they included an elbow-shaped pipe bomb filled with powder and b.b.'s. he told the jury, i always call it an improvised grenade. the elbow shape means when it's tossed it won't roll away. the jury saw a straight pipe bomb and a tupperware device found behind the driver's seat in the suv. >> turns out the boston bombers, they, too, were following specific instructions on how to build those bombs. investigators recovered files from the tsunaev brothers that included the same magazine article that detailed step by step instructions with pictures about how to make a pipe bomb at home. look at this, the image on the left is a picture from the al qaeda magazine from their instruction sheet. the image on the right is the pipe bomb that actually was built by the tsarnaev brothers and confiscated in the confrontation with the police in watertown. the truth is we do not know whether this latest incident in san bernadino with this couple had anything to do with al qaeda's magazine. that's something we don't know at all, but we can tie that magazine and its step by step pictorial instructions to a bunch of different u.s. terrorist attacks and attempted terrorist attacks. and in this case, we know that this couple had more than just an armory worth of ammunition and at least four guns. we know that they had more than a dozen pipe bombs, 12 at a home in redlands that's tied to the couple who committed the shoot, and one device they parentally left at the center where the shooting happened, even though it didn't detonate. it was three pipe bombs strapped together with some detonator that appears to have come out of a remote control car. at this point, we d not yet know exactly how these bombs were constructed, what sort of explosives were used, whether they were even fully functioning. "inspire" magazine is not the only place where you can learn to make a pipe bomb. you can find manuals all over the internet on how to make bombs like these and other bombs as well. but will the specific construction of these devices that they've got now, 13 of them at least, will that tell us anything about whether these folks were trained, whether they had help? or even where they got their instructions on how to do this. the existence of the bombs tells us this isn't just another mass shooting. what are the forensics on the bombs themselves going to tell us about the shooters and where came from and why this happened? joining us now is a professional on strategy, tactics and ideological technology known as tapestry. is it fair to think about bombs as having forensic signature that allow you to trace them, at least if not to the bomb maker then to the person who gave instructions? >> sure. it allows you an opportunity to look at certain things -- the construction can give you a clue as to the sophistication, if you've seen this sort of device someplace else, how common it is to see this. for instance, pipe bombs are extremely common throughout a number of operations, not just limited 20 terrorists. they're also known for other mass shootings. >> so combining explosives, homemade explosives with gun fire is not that uncommon in terms of mas shooting? >> it is not that uncommon. as recently as 2014, there was a shooting in las vegas -- or excuse me, there was a shooting fairly recently where they also used pipe bombs. there was also another use of pipe bombs in columbine. we saw a number of rudimentary devices there. we've seen them with the boston bombings as we saw previously. the reason they use them primarily is to draw in first responders. >> as essentially a secondary attack. they want to be able to kill first responders after they've already committed the initial assault that brought the first responders to the scene? >> that is correct. >> you said pipe bombs are common. how dangerous is it to make them? i'm struck by the fact that they apparently made 12. i don't know how well they made them, but they made them well enough not to kill themselves while making them. >> these rudimentary devices are often very volatile. so often times there are more dead bomb makers than victims at times. it's not uncommon in certain locations to find a bomb maker without any fingers or missing limps. the components are extremely volatile. we look at a compound which is an explosive used in paris, or look at gunpowder. if it's not stacked correctly in the casing. if you have a static charge for instance off your hands, they can be a source of ignition for the explosive. it's not uncommon. >> the kind of instruction that is given in the al qaeda magazine, and again, we have no idea if that's the kind of construction that was found with these pipe bombing in san bernadino. is that a generic enough type of instruction? or generic enough template that it won't tell us anything about the sort of ideological inspiration for this attack if there was one? >> yeah. bomb maker is a very simple -- can be a very simple process. if you're talking about rudimentary devices, having a pipe bomb is not necessarily indicative of belonging to a certain group. it won't tell me if you're a member of al qaeda. it won't tell me if you're a member of isis. there will be other components that will help me in that process. certainly the bomb certainly kind of will also help me along as well. >> forensically, among lots of other leads at this point, but at this point we've got so many more questions than we do answers. scriven king, thanks very much for being here. work... to run this business. i'm on the move all day long... and sometimes, i just don't eat the way i should. so i drink boost to get the nutrition that i'm missing. boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a great taste. i don't plan on slowing down any time soon. stay strong. stay active with boost. now try new boost® compact and 100 calories. i just had a horrible nightmare. my company's entire network went down, and i was home in bed, unaware. but that would never happen. comcast business monitors my company's network 24 hours a day and calls and e-mails me if something, like this scary storm, takes it offline. so i can rest easy. what. you don't have a desk bed? don't be left in the dark. get proactive alerts 24/7. comcast business. built for business. >> if the san bernadino attack had not happened, or frankly if it had just been better explained by now, if we had fewer unanswered really important big questions about it, if either of those things were true, the ore major news story that the country would be riveted by right now is the historic decision made by the pentagon, the decision that all combat jobs in the united states military will now be open to women. the armed forces have been studying that prospect for three years now. it became a very high-profile prospect when women graduated from army ranger school for the first time in history earlier this year. a lot of people said that could physically never happen. it happened. but even with that, nobody had been sure if all combat jobs would be open to women or just some. now we know as of today it's all of them. the chiefs of the army, the navy, the air fort and the special operations command had all agreed already that all of their combat jobs could be open to women. there was a hold-up, though. the marine corps did not agree. the commandante requested exemptions to keep women out of some specific combat jobs. we now know those request for women has been denied. one standard, all services, all jobs. all services will now open all jobs to all service members depending on merit alone and not gender. that includes special operations, that includes artillery, infantry, armor and all other frontline combat positions. the services have a very short time frame. they have until january 1 which is the end of this month, right? january 1 to submit their plans of how they are going to do this in terms of opening all jobs to where i am. they have to have these changes implemented, the start of implementation has to be april 1. so this is going to happen fast now. this has been debated for years. this has been debated now for decades. but as of today, it's done, decision made and as of april 1 it's going to be implemented. now next question -- the draft. all young american males have to register with the selected service within 30 diefs turning 18 in case they bring back the military draft. will all young american women have to start registering within 30 days of their 18th birthday now, too? that is an open question. not yet decided but it will be soon. everybody freak out. that does it for us. >> good evening, rachel, thank you. >> well, for 24 hours, they were just a number. 14. 14 dead in san bernadino. when we heard that number in american news rooms. we awe newel we would be talking about nothing else in our coverage. because kornl of these events, multiple murders in america are simply determined by body count. 14. 14 stopped us all yesterday. but if it had been two, if it had been three, we would not be paying this much attention to it.