construction vest and a hard hat just before the shooting. and in a chilling moment, police believe he hopped onto another train as it was racing out of that station, trying to get the passengers to safety. they say he hopped on that train with them. janai norman and aaron katersky reporting tonight. and pierre thomas on what has federal authorities so concerned about this case going forward. also tonight, the dangerous tornado threat as we come on the air tonight. the ef-3 confirmed, winds 165 miles per hour. tornado watches across several states. louisiana to indiana. severe storms from new orleans to indianapolis, then moving east. heavy rain, hail, damaging winds, gusts up to 75 miles per hour. and then philadelphia and new york city facing storms tomorrow. ginger zee tracking it all. the disturbing new video from ukraine tonight appearing to show cluster bombs being used to attack civilians in kharkiv. and tonight, what the u.s. is now sending to ukraine.
and was just alerting people to what happened. he was telling the station agent that people had been injured and bleeding and the shooting at the time. otherwise, everything was pretty normal all around. no one, there wasn t really anything unusual that i saw. i was taking what he said and so immediately got out of there. konrad, this is jim sciutto. the initial reports are that the suspect fled wearing a gas mask and orange vest like a construction vest and that suspect, we should note, still at large. where you were on the level above, did you see anybody fleeing and did you see or did you see the police response, the police coming down? no. i definitely did not see someone with a gas mask running out of there. i didn t see anyone moving fast really. i mean, basically, everyone was,
this. we don t know, frank, how this was carried out, right? i mean, there s some reports that the person may have been had a gas mask on. that maybe he was wearing a vest of some type. but really, right now, we know very little about this person who carried out this attack earlier this morning. so, what we do know, and of course, you know, jose, from covering these, that early reports are often wrong. but we know so far from statements that this looks like a pre-planned event. why do i say that? if it s true that the suspect was wearing went to the lengths of wearing a construction vest, for example. well, that s forethought. he s thinking, i need a cover, to be carrying something, these alleged smoke devices, perhaps. i need to be someone who s going to integrate into the morning crowd and not raise suspicions. he s thought this through. it s not something that he like just snapped and happened on the subway. we have multiple people down. that means there s an intention to hurt a
fbi division in new york. very good at this. they ve got a lot of manpower, a lot of technical capability. and always the problem on social media, why we have so many initial reports that are incorrect, is because it s misconstrued. people jump into the situation, start putting false information out to try to drive a political or social or ideological agenda. it s always better go straight to law enforcement and let them be the best mediators for what s right. clint, you ll stay with us. police seeking a man in a construction vest who had been wearing a gas mask. reports say 13 people were injured, hospitalized, five people shot, two of them seriously. and as we heard from our ron allen, who was on the scene, police have moved much of the media to one area. we are hoping to get an update, to get a police briefing some time soon. former nypd police commissioner said he would expect some type of press conference to happen fairly quickly. we ll take a quick break and be
claiming to be recorded inside the subway. it appears to show some of the gunfire. [ gunfire ] you can hear what appear to be shots in the background. as for suspect, investigators describe him as a black man about 5 5 tall, wearing a construction vest with a gray hooded sweatshirt underneath. they are not calling this a terrorist attack at this point, but they are calling it an active shooter situation. this individual is still on the loose. this person is dangerous. we are asking individuals to be very vigilant and alert. we ll get more reports on specificity as the day goes on. this is an active shooter situation right now in the city of new york. i m joined by nbc s ron allen in brooklyn and nbc justice correspondent pete williams.