in pittsburgh in the swirl hill neighborhood of pittsburgh, a well known historic jewish neighborhood. the service started at 9:45. it is saturday shabbat, according to the website, the busiest day in any synagogue. 9:45 is when the service evidently started. 10:20, just after that, when reports of active shooter came to cnn here. we did speak to sheriff s deputy kevin krause. he said it is an active, fluent situation and i can t talk now, but we have a little more information from the pittsburgh public safety, verified twitter account, confirming active shooter. they say it is near the synagogue. there are other unconfirmed reports we re working to pin down. still a fluid situation as you look at images from kdka in pittsburgh. fredricka? nick, when you say active shooter situation, what do we know may have preceded to get that label. were there shots fired? was it the sight of an alleged
set white male wearing jeans with a beard. they said they found magazines in the hallway and shell casings throughout the building as they began the search to find victims and find people that were barricaded inside. they also were looking at a possible package being vault evaluated. we know there is one suspect in custody but we haven t heard reports if there could possibly be more. we have three officers that have been shot. at this time we have no more information, we are clearing the building, trying to figure out if the situation is safe, if there are any more threats inside the building. that s all we have at this point. the shooter is in custody. we have multiple casualties, three officers shot. mr. mayor, can you add anything? we ll be in touch. there s still a lot of
situation. it is terrifying to watch the images on the screen, fredricka. as you mention, this is near the tree of life synagogue in the well known historic jewish neighborhood of squirrel hill in pittsburgh. saturday is shabbat, busiest day of any synagogue. services according to the website start at 9:45 a.m. eastern at the tree of life. at cnn here, we first heard reports of active shooter after 10:20 eastern this morning. and it was a short time ago we got a very brief, blunt, impromptu briefing from law enforcement and local leadership talking about active gunfire, multiple casualties. we are aware that local affiliates put a number on the casualties. cnn has yet to be able to pin those down and verify that. but it is a live scene with officers holding a perimeter, perhaps even at this point if they can sweeping the structure. again, we still don t know, fredricka, whether or not the
you see so many police, law enforcement there, descended on an area because of a reported active shooter situation. it is unclear if it is one alleged gunman or multiple. police said they have a perimeter that s in place. there are multiple casualties. you see a variety of vehicles that pulled up, emergency vehicles that pulled up. they re urging people to stay indoors, lock doors, stay in their homes. this is a densely populated residential area and synagogue had been under way roughly 30 minutes, a service, before reports of gunfire taking place. still unclear whether gunfire took place inside or outside the facility. nick valencia is keeping close tabs on information surrounding the shooting. nick, what have you learned? still a chaotic, hectic
homeland the department of homeland security to evaluate exit routes. the maintenance person, the doors were open to allow him to get in and out of the building. working with the securities expert what to do in an active shooter situation, active shooter training. we were working with the other synagogues, what to do if something horrific like this happened. what have you talked to and what have they told you? the main person i did speak to i know really well, augie, the maintenance, one of our maintenance people there. he s been there 25 years. he is usually a very cool and collected person. he saw one of our congregants