we can korea it this expertise together. reporter: on a thursday night, a wet side resident showed up at the weekly public newsroom, a forum on issues affected them, finding a story or two about them from segregation to lead exposure. i really am encouraged to want to know watts going on, especially since the city is like up for grabs, it seems to be imploding. reporter: back on the street, manny ramos remains focused on getting it right. right now i m committed to chicago and i ve grown up with and am familiar with. i think there is a lot of who, that needs to be done, repaired at that level. reporter: journalists as agents of change. ron mott, nbc news. thanks to ron mot in the chicago. still ahead, the new emergency on vaping. new york s governor cuomo is asking for a ban on the new
going forward. there was a lot of speculation perhaps maybe there would be some sort of plea deal. we ll have to wait and see. right now a hearing at 2:30 scheduled to set bond. hallie? we ve been looking ron mot, i m going to ask you to stand by as you ve been looking at the new booking photo of smollett. i want to bring in danny savalos. that press conference is set to begin. right before a major news conference like this, everybody is getting their ducks in a row before what is going to be a very closely watched. it s been a highly anticipated news conference now from the chicago police. danny, a couple of legal questions. talk through why you think that they went for a felony charge and not the misdemeanor? because it fits within the statute. smollett is charged with disorderly conduct which traditionally we think of as a lower level crime. a summary offense. in illinois, disorderly conduct is a broadly defined crime. it includes playing your music
a pittsburgh federal court tomorrow afternoon. he will appear tomorrow in court for the formal charges and i assume an indictment within days? reporter: right. i don t know if he s going to appear from jail or if he will physically be well enough to go to court physically. he was wounded by gunfire. we don t know how many bullets he was struck with, but he was wounded in an exchange of gunfire, we believe, with police. and authorities have also told us that while he was engaging those officers is when he was also mentioning why he wanted to kill all the jewish people. so it s a very disturbing scene there at the synagogue. officials say it could be the end of the week before they clear that crime scene, rev. thank you, nbc s ron mot in pittsburgh. i want to bring in my panel. fordham university professor and
let s start with an update from pittsburgh where nbc s ron mot is standing by with the latest. ron, tell us what you have found out today there in pittsburgh. reporter: hey, there, rev. good sunday to you. when they mentioned the names and the ages of these 11 people who died, it makes sense, even more real than it already was. it was a truly tragic situation, those victims ranging from 54 all the way to a holocaust survivor in her upper 90s. we re outside the apartment complex where robert bowers lived for the past two years. you can see a half dozen people there interviewing his next door neighbors. we spoke to a female earlier and she told us she didn t find him to be unusual. he wasn t necessarily outwardly friendly or unfriendly, but he
congressional race. the president set to speak to had his supporters. the president may neil he is at his political best in a campaign like there. there are many of us that wish today of all days he could be at his presidential best. we ll see if he takes on the kind of tone that will reflect that tenor. nbc s ron mot is right on the scene in the squirrel hill neighborhood in pittsburgh where their disaster unfolded some eight hours ago. what is the latest from there? as you might imagine, this is a devastating blow to this city but specially this neighborhood. squirrel hill is a predominantly jewish community. a lot of folks families emigrated to the city about 100 years ago and this synagogue a block away where you can see there s a heavy law enforcement presence is as anchor in this community. three congregations celebrate their faith here. this gentleman walked into a