at the place of las romblas where we are there were at least eight or nine ambulances waitin waiting. shepard: on the right-hand side of your screen is what we believe to be the mercedes man in question here. this is a still picture from social media. and this is the white van that came to a stop at the end of la rombla, at the end of this pedestrian area and barcelona. we also have reports of a second band that s been located about 40 miles away, we have that from authorities. i certainly don t believe the authorities are misleading in any way but in the early going it can be very difficult to get all the facts straight, even for the authorities to get them disseminated. we are sure that is the van on scene, we know they are still looking for the driver of that van, apparently the driver came to a stop at the end of la rombla, got out of the van, got
headed towards las romblas, we were going to head towards the beach but as we were headed over, as we got to the back corner, the fruit market we started to hear everyone running. i heard a couple of what sounded like gunshots. shepard: repeatedly people have said, witnesses have been speaking of gunshots but authority haven t mentioned this at all. firearms are rare and hard to come by as i understand it ther there. it was a very loud shattering sound, i heard it a couple of times and i ran in the opposite direction. in the beginning everyone was running in a lot of different directions because we weren t sure which way to go, i am with my cousin. we looked at each other and just sat around and we started running back towards the way that we came trying to get away. shepard: how crowded was the area at the time? i would say it was very
the deaths in las romblas. it appears to be a reasonable assumption as they are somehow linked to the van, if not the people who were inside and driving it. just to remind you, at least 13 people dead according to one source. as you can see on the bottom of your screen, police are moving through the city center of one of spain s biggest cities, searching for the occupants of that van. we are expecting an update from the police and the next minutes, we ll talk about what s taking place around 6:00 p.m. british time. it tends to speak to the public as soon as possible, partly to huge interest, but around the world for what is happening there. also to reassure.
i would say, las romblas is the most iconic place in all of spain. it s a very high profile target and that again testifies to the planning that has gone into thi this. sandra: want to continue to get more perspective, i want to let you know as well that the nypd counterterrorism unit has spoken out on this saying we are closely monitoring the developments of the incident in barcelona. buck saxton joins us, he is a former cia counterterrorism analyst. obviously, when we see a situation like this overseas, we tend to tighten up security here at home. what do you make of what you re seeing and hearing so far? clearly, it has all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack and whether it s isis inspired or isis directed, it could even be remote control where you have a terrorist group that is
people, the police almost immediately closed the restaurant and they are still there because they have closed las romblas. tell us just how quickly you saw a response from emergency services, the police in particular. i m sorry? how quickly did you begin to see a response from the police in terms of the numbers we have seen? a good a few minutes. maybe 10 minutes, i don t know. maybe 8 minutes, 10 minutes, i cannot say exactly. as one of the religious