columbia, maryland, in howard county just outside washington d.c. we have our own cnn crews on the way to that mall. we continue to reach out to a number of sources in that vicinity. mike brooks is on the phone with us now. you know that area, given that you once worked in the metropolitan police in that area. what are your sources telling you about what this means? there s not too many details right now. the mall apparently is on complete lockdown right now. employees are sheltering in place in their stores as they have probably practiced in the past. and the howard county police and fire, they are both on the scene. howard county police all so on their twitter account, en route. they don t have many facts right now. they re telling me there s a possibility of numerous people shot. trying to confirm that right
determination, okay, i m going to allow you to leave the mall? or does everyone have to stay the mall together separating them in contained areas until law enforcement feels like the lockdown has been lifted? i think they ll be able to make a judgment call pretty quickly you know, to determine, who the employees are in other stores or who the shoppers are that are not involved in this or may not have any information of value. so they ll identify everybody and take their their names and their e-mail addresses and their telephone numbers. but they re certainly not going to hold, you know, hundreds or maybe thousands of people in that mall all day while they search every close it. if they can make a call and reasonably believe someone s innocent and not involved, i think they ll be letting them go so they don t have to have that many extra people to deal with at the site. if you could hold tight and
one found near a gun and ammunition. but again identification not being revealed as yet. as you said, still unclear whether there may be an active situation still underway. we can extrapolate whether just because this body was found near ammunition and a gun, you can t presume that is the gunman. nor is it clear whether there are others that may continue to be in the mall that pose harm or threat. now does law enforcement go about the business of trying to get a good comprehension of what is taking place inside the mall, whether to lift the lockdown, whether to continue to treat everyone they come into contact with as a suspect, or whether it s time to treat everyone as a potential victim?
that s what our investigators are looking at now. again, we had security safety concerns about the mall. our investigators have not been in the mall since 11:00. they re getting in there and review that footage now. the folks at columbia mall and their security team who we work with on a daily basis have been very helpful in letting us review that footage. how are you competent it s not a domestic incident. i didn t say it s not a domestic. i said we have not verified what no siv motive is. somebody has reported that from a federal law enforcement source that that is what it is. but i m telling you, is we cannot confirm that. we can t deny it. we simply do not know. and if you re looking for the motive, the howard county police department are investigating the incident, we would be the ones to ask. we ve got a tremendous amount of support from our allied agencies and we appreciate their help but in terms of the dynamics of the shooting itself, that s going to be coming from us.
is outside of a sears department store. we understand that howard county police, fire are all on the scene there. it s unclear how many people may have been involved. we do know that this mall has been locked down. this ask a shopping mall that i frequented as a kid. at the time there was ice skating rink in the mall that was very appealing to a lot of families. don t know if it s still there, but it is a very busy, sophisticated mall there. we ll continue to watch the situation there. as we get anymore information about how many alleged gunmen may be involved, we don t know if it s one, we don t know if it s several. and no confirmation as to whether there have been any injuries as well. police, fire, ems are all on the scene. the mall is in lockdown.