now. the first call coming in at 1:03 p.m. eastern time that something was amiss and that there was a dangerous person on the campus. joining me right now, nbc news correspondent julia ainsley. julia, welcome. let's talk about what's happening there. we just have this person of interest, what else do we know? >> this is the second week of classes for students at unc chill. this alert went out around 1:00 to students and residents in chapel hill, telling them to shelter in place. no injuries reported at this time. i need to underline that. but we know that this incident was around the callville labs area around campus. around the bell tower area, that area went into immediate lockdown, and they're telling students and residents to remain in place. in fact, around 1:00, they even said stay away from doors and windows. there was a period of time that we thought the suspect was in custody. that appears to have changed. they now say this person is at large, and they have posted that picture, saying this is a person of interest in the armed and dangerous person situation. they're not calling it a shooting at this point. there have been reports that there was at least one shot fired. as far as what police are calling this at this point, is that they have a suspect at large, a person of interest at large, rather, and an armed and dangerous person situation. they're telling everyone to keep their distance from this person, and to call 911. again, just a week after these students got back into the classrooms, alex. >> it's an extraordinary thing. you think about the campus there. it is really the size of a city. in fact, the population on that campus, 19,743 undergraduates. add to that graduate students. this lab area that you're referring to, julia, do we know in what quadrant of that campus it is, is it the north side, south side, because this is not all that far from raleigh. >> i'm from raleigh, i spent a lot of time in unc on that campus. this appears to be closer to the south side of campus. unc, chill, that is integrated into the city. there are parts where you'll pass by the residential neighborhoods. until you get to a class building or gym. a situation that might be a building on campus, which is why not only students but also residents of chapel hill are on lockdown and because that first alert as you pointed out went out about two hours ago, it's not clear where exactly the suspect might be at this point, but they are telling people to keep their distance and to call 911, alex. but it can present a scary situation. >> it absolutely does, and the problem is at a campus, it's a large campus to house students. it's a huge area for police. both those who may be joining from raleigh, and those there at university of north carolina campus police. just want to let all of you know, we're seeing one week into the start of classes, on that university campus, and what's happening, you have students being led out of your classrooms, hands up, we have seen as well. trying to get there to safety. we also saw some pretty traumatic footage of kids leaving their classrooms, rather, and literally running. you can about imagine what any of these kids are feeling right now. julia stay with me, i'm going to bring into the conversation, rob d'amico, former fbi official. let's talk as i welcome you, rob, to this breaking news coverage. tell me what is going on from an fbi perspective, or if you want to drill down into that which the university of north carolina police are doing, how do they begin when you're talking about over 700 acres of property to try to comb through for this one person that we see to the right of the screen? >> it's a difficult situation. i actually have two children, one works at the university, and one is a student. so i started getting texts from my oldest about that. and, again, a university this big, you have this shooting, you respond to it, and then you start getting information and you start getting a suspect, but then trying to figure out where they're going to. i know they've stopped a couple of people based on the description, and they're trying to drill down and see if he's still on campus, and then you have to determine where the safe spots are. you see the students coming out. are you moving them to a place that's safer or are you trying to determine did he go into a building that you now have to clear. that gets very complicated, and then understanding like how far he could have gotten if he had a car, if he had access, going to start trying to review some cameras arounds area to see if they can determine that. federal officials are going in trying to help, you're going to need manpower. i'm sure the fbi and other federal agencies are pushing people to the campus police and city police to help them start clearing areas out. >> rob, before we go any further and asking about your expertise, have you heard from both of your kids? >> i did. lucky neither were on campus at the time. they were actually both working from home, so that's the first thing i checked, and then i started look agent all the texts coming in. they were getting texts from their friends who were on campus, and talking about it, and seeing where the shooting happened and who was around that area. and again, it's very frightening as a parent, the first thing you hear, it happened once when the kids were in middle school. i was actually still in the fbi, had my phone in a skiff, and there was a bombing scare, and there were a hundred different messages on that. it's troubling when there are students there, and trying to figure out if they were safe. >> i have two kids, and it was my worst nightmare that either would have to go through it. mercifully they did not. there is a massive police presence, is that going to be compromised of unc campus folks. will fbi be welcomed on that campus, unequivocally, are they able to come on right away to assist in an investigation like this? >> absolutely. they're going to be asked, but that's the first thing that goes out. they start sending people there, and i'm sure the campus, they go through these drills all the time. so that's the biggest thing with these exercises that they do. they get on to a point where they know first names of people they can call and request help. i'm sure the fbi s.w.a.t team has worked with the campus police or tactical guys and the police, and they have gone through these, and they have done table top exercises where, hey, what area are you going to report to. what area is safe, where are we going to stage, put our vehicles or things like that. so they go through these a lot. and it's just because when they do happen, you don't have time to go through the details. i'm sure that the campus police have set up the command center. i'm sure fbi supervisors are going there. i'm sure the tactical folks are going to a staging area, on the line of communication, police have a different radio system. they'll go with campus plus in order to, hey, this building, we need to clear and the fbi s.w.a.t team is going to do it, and maybe a different city, like raleigh police may be sending their s.w.a.t team over, and raleigh is going to do this. so there's coordination between agencies. >> i'm going to ask you your professional insight as i ask director sterling to put up the photo that was released as someone considered a person of interest. when you look at that photo, it's not like it's a photo that was captured from a camera grab, right? this looks like an official photo of sorts, student identification, driver's license, or whatever. tell me if i'm wrong, does that suggest that the unc campus police may have an idea who this person is despite not divulging that information yet. >> absolutely, it's not a surveillance photo, and so something in an investigation has led them to identify this person of interest. they're not releasing that name because unfortunately people would know the name, and people would send people over to where this person lives. that could be dangerous. he may have gotten back there. they're going to probably have to do a search warrant at his house. they're going to want to contain the area. they're not putting out the name and identifiables to someone who can say, i know where he is, i'm going to his house. >> i just want to make sure everyone understands what we're dealing with right here. you have used the word shooting. to the best of our knowledge, and i'm going to get julia ainsley to confirm this. we have heard about one shot fired. we don't have any certainty of anyone having been shot. i want to make this clear at this point. julia, you know a little bit more about who this person is that we're looking at on the screen? >> yeah, that's right, now, in all of these situations, alex, we have to point out we're just sharing the information that we can confirm and our team can confirm in the moment. so our affiliate in raleigh, wril, has done research to find out the name of the person. we have not independently confirmed the name. what we have confirmed that i would like to share now is that they believe this person of interest is a unc graduate student. now, that of course could be very probable. unc has a number of graduate schools. the medical campus, chapel hill campus. a graduate student, but then again, this isn't someone who just came into the community. this is someone who's a student at unc, possibly someone who just started classes on campus last week. so a little more information that we're getting now. we're not ready to share the name of this individual because as you know, that's such a sensitive topic. we want to have that triple confirmed before we share anyone's name. at this point, this is the picture the police are putting out of the person who they say is a person of interest, and the armed and dangerous situation. they're not calling it a shooting, they're not calling it an active shooting, but this person is at large, and this man, who you see here is a graduate student at unc chapel hill. >> and to rob's point, there are reasons for not divulging names, and he went through why someone would not want to do that at this point, as you have as well. let's make the point that it's a large campus, the graduate population of students, 11,796 right now. and your indication, julia, is that this person of interest is a current student. >> that's right. >> and we also understand by rob's reporting having conferred with people that he knows there on the scene, and his own two kids who are there affiliated with the campus, unfortunately not there this afternoon right now. that this all happened near a laboratory building. so, rob, back to you, when you think about somebody, a graduate student, potentially this happens near a laboratory building that would indicate a science graduate student, potentially maybe engineering, is that how they're able to narrow this down, and look and see that the likelihood this person had some affiliation with where the first shot was reportedly fired? >> there's always going to be something that draws that person to that location. and if he's going to that lab more, it may have been well known. he may have encountered someone that knew him. that something happened, that's how they -- that's how they quickly got that. and then there's cameras around the university that they can start looking at, so there was something that pointed them to this. there's something that got him to that location. if a shot was fired that that happened. i mean, there's all kinds of rumors out. my kids are getting rumors in different numbers of those injured, but i know nothing has been confirmed. but something led him to that location. we have seen, though, when someone was going to a campus or to a location as an active shooter and then got confronted or saw something and started firing shots. it could have been something, he was going somewhere, and then something happened at this location where it caused a different incident. but most likely it had something to do with that building, that lab. there's so many things that are called labs from engineering to medical to other things. >> no, absolutely. stay with us both of you. katherine schweitt, former fbi special agent. give us your assessment of this incident so far, where things must stand given that we have this person of interest who is listed at large, and when you say large, that applies to a very large campus as well there at unc. >> yeah, i think that's the frightening part, right, it is large. it is very large, and a huge campus, it's not any school campus, college campus is that kind of a situation where we don't really know whether or not the person is even still around. right? and the person is identified because they have a picture up that tells me that law enforcement has a very -- they're very confident in releasing that photograph of an individual, and that's helpful for them, of course, to make sure that they know that the law enforcement has to look for this particular person, but they want others to look for him, so they're really working with no information except for unverified information at this point, clearly they have information about this individual or they wouldn't have released the photo. >> i'm going to ask you this question, but in the meantime, ask julia ainsley, our nbc reporter to see if she can dig in and find any stats on whether or not a campus like this, typical campus like this or this specific campus has metal detectors. i mean, so often we have heard about the conversations and tragically, the need to have these placed on our school campuses across this country, anywhere from kindergarten to university campuses, do we know if unc has anything like that around a laboratory area or any other campus buildings? >> is that a question to me? >> yes. >> you know, it's not really practical to have metal detectors in and around a large campus. we just had a shooting at michigan state university in the fall. they have nearly 600 buildings on nine plus square miles of land. unc of course isn't quite that big, i don't think they're quite that big, but they have so many buildings, and sending people through metal detectors, requires that you have security there who can check when somebody comes through. metal detectors on a campus is not really practical. you may have them in individual buildings like the administrative heads building. you could have them in, for instance, a library, but you're not going to see them in standard classroo and dormitories. >> katherine and rob, stay with me, apparently we have students talking on the ground about their experience this afternoon. let's take a listen. >> and see when they can take us. >> thank you. are you from here? >> no, i'm from chicago, actually, but i'm here for school. >> yeah, you can imagine that student being a little bit shocked. coming into a campus. we don't know if that student a freshman, having spent one week on the campus are a bit more seasoned to the unc campus. there is got to be a lot of shock right now, and it's going to have a ripple effect through the community, not only those people on campus, students, administrators, teachers and the like, also campus police, obviously trained well, you see their heavy presence there on the campus of university of north carolina, imagine all the parents of which there is one with us right now, again, rob, can you just quickly recall how your kids got word about this incident, and what was going on. >> it was a text message that went out to my oldest was an employee of the university, she graduated from there last year, and then my other child, i think, started getting texts from their friends that were on campus and then the rumors started going out. so they've also been on x, there's a couple of people broadcasting updates on x and pushing some things out. i think a photo of a person who was stopped and detained because they didn't know who they were, and fit the description. there's some false things going out that they had caught the subject, and then it was retracted back, so all of these things that the information flow gets very confusing. but the first one that went out was a text from the campus saying to take shelter, shut windows, close doors, and that went out fairly quick. which is good. those communications systems are getting better. >> absolutely. back to julia ainsley. i understand you have a comment from the governor. >> reporter: that's right. we saw a statement that came out from governor roy cooper. my office is in communication with law enforcement officials at unc chapel hill who are taking precautions to protect campus safety following today's shooting. this is a tragic way to start a new semester and the stay will provide any assistance necessary to support the unc community. he is calling this a shooting. previously police have called it an armed and dangerous person situation. but again, we have no evidence of any injuries or fatalities for that matter on this campus at this time. and i'll point out that, you know, our cameras have been there for a long time. we see a lot of presence from state troopers, from police, from all of these cities coming together as they should be to respond to a situation like this. what we don't see is ambulances coming in and out. something you might see in a mass casualty situation. certainly something we'll keep an eye on, the governor is as well. the statement coming from raleigh, and they are in touch on the situation. i just say at this point, as far as we know, this was not a shooting that actually shot a individual that we know of yet, and we'll get you more information as we have it. sorry i have more breaking news for you. unc chapel hill just tweeted out, stay shelter in place until all clear is given and that they have cancelled all events for the rest of the day. they are now telling students to remain in place, and they have cancelled everything for the rest of the day. >> that makes good sense given the kind of danger that we pose by a lone gunman in the area. look at it, everybody, you can see the topography there. there's a lot of greenery, and, julia, you're from this area. talk about the campus itself, winding roads, lots of trees, it's a beautiful campus, but offers a lot of places for hiding. >> reporter: it's beautiful. three generations of my family went to medical school at unc, and worked in those hospitals. i got my start in journalism living at unc and working for the papers reporting on the tragedy. it's a quaint place, a quintessential college town. it's hard to pull apart the community from the town because not only are they physically intertwined, you see the residences along with the beautiful old college buildings and quad, all intertwined but as a community as well. they are really emotionally and share an identity link here with this campus, if anything happened here, you would see a outpouring from this community. it's a beloved place for so many, and so many across the country as well. as you know, unc was part of a supreme court case dealing with affirmative action. it gets a lot of attention because it means a lot to so many people. it doesn't seem that we are hearing of injuries to that beloved community. >> and i'm so glad that you would point that out. we are not seeing ambulances. that cannot be enough underscored. parents and anyone who has loved ones on this campus, take note of that, and hope you have heard from your loved one, and they told you they are okay. and per julia's latest reporting, all classes and events have been cancelled for the rest of the day. that's coming from alert carolina, which is that school alert system. i'm joined on the phone by jim kavanaugh, former atf special agent in charge. jim, i'm sorry to have to talk to you again after we spent so much time over the weekend, talking in the wake of the jackson shooting at the dollar general store. give me your assessment of where things are right now. the fact that we have this photo and as has been disseminated earlier. it's not like a photo from a surveillance camera. it would indicate that police on campus know who this person is because they wouldn't lightly distribute this photo. if they didn't have reason to. >> i think you're correct, they have his identity. and your excellent reporting to focus for the parents around the country. what we have here. you have one report of one gunshot on the campus. and no victims. one gunshot, and no victims. and his item is likely known to the law enforcement officers, so what could this be, well, you know, it has the feel of a suicide in action. and the person is carrying a gun, and he was going to harm someone or it could be that the person is suicidal, and, you know, went to a place, you know, sometimes suicidal people do commit murder. that's what a lot of these mass shootings do happen to be. just like alex, the one we talked about just the other day, where the little nazi went in and killed the shoppers and killed himself. he was suicidal, and homicidal, so that does coincide. oftentimes suicide is a lone act and people do it in front of others. they will do it somewhere they're known. the one shot on the campus, and the person can't be located, i think we should right now is a little bit of a good sign in a bad situation. so i would understand what the law enforcement commanders are looking at here, and i think everybody in unc is now on the officers' side looking for this guy. they know who he is. that picture, they know who he is, and they're looking for him too. and what julie said was, you know, this is great reporting. we're not seeing ambulances. we're not seeing the injuries. the police do not know of any victims. there's no reports that we've heard of multiple gunshots. this is an incident, i would put it this way, too. this is an incident that happens in every city in america every day in big cities, there's a report of a shot fired here and there. the reason this is so sensitive is it's on a college campus, so the response is correct by law enforcement, by reporters, because we've seen the carnage on our campuses by these active killers. so we all respond that way, and we should, the police should, because that's what it could be. but it also could be, what i'm saying is when it also could be things that happen in every community every day, and it may not be a target at the community. we have to wait and see. >> yeah, we have to wait and see for sure. stay with me, jim, rob, catherine as well, and of course julia ainsley. we have a report from a student about what he or she has experienced. we'll find out if it's a male or female. let's play that. >> i was sitting outside of one of the buildings over here, and then we got the alert on our phones, and then within three minutes, cops flooded the street everywhere. you could see people coming out with loaded weapons. just flooding the street, telling people to, you know, stay back. that's about all i really saw. i was there when that guy -- there was one guy that got handcuffed that fit the description, but wasn't him. >> you said three minutes, what was that like? >> it was terrifying. you see it on the phone, you don't know what to think about it, and you see what the response is, and you start to realize how serious the situation is. >> i actually was was going to class as normal in genome science, i was there walking around outside like 1:10. i came in and went to the bathroom before i was going to class, and people started coming in the bathroom, and they were like, there's an active shooter on campus, we stayed hiding in the stalls, squatting on the toilets. we were scared. we don't know what was happening. everyone was too scared to go out and check. i went out of the stall into like the main area of genome science, and there was people there saying it's okay. just stay where you are. police are coming, and then finally the police started surrounding the building, getting everything together, and all the students are safe now over there. >> how terrifying was that? >> it was very terrifying for sure. i had like no idea what was going on. i had to like react quickly but i just wanted to make sure everyone was okay. >> and here we are two and a half hours into the terrible situation on the university of north carolina campus. what we know so far, there is a report of one shot having been fired, no one having been injured, no one having been killed, but this person to the right of your screen is a person who is being noted of interest. we believe this is someone that is known to the campus police. this looks like either an official school photo, maybe a driver's license photo. but this person has been identified as a graduate student. however, when you're dealing with a huge campus as we are, with the university of north carolina, chapel hill, there, that's 729 acres of campus. it's a beautiful campus with a lot of cover, trees, and beautiful underbrush. you have buildings dotted all over the place. it's the kind of thing that people know there's something out there armed and dangerous and to that extent, unc has cancelled all classes and events for the rest of the day. but parents out there, please know that there have been no reports of anyone being injured. but they are very actively looking for this person right now, and they have cleared those classrooms of all students and gotten them to safety. catherine, i'm going to bring you back to the conversation right now, again, a former special agent with the fbi. give me a sense of where they would be right now in an investigation? i mean, if you know who this person is, what are they next steps? >> yeah, schweitt, it is a challenge for them. one of the things we can see is the law enforcement is clearing buildings, and if they did have a shot fired as the governor's message indicated, there is an opportunity for them to clear an area and confine the area where there might be a threat to anybody. the students are moving all over campus, and if you see students coming out with the hands up, we saw that, that means that the law enforcement there, it recognizes an area that's a threat, and they want to clear that area moving out. i think another thing that is important, maybe, for listeners to remember, especially if you're far away, and you have kids on that campus is to remember that law enforcement is probably looking for an individual who has a particular grievance. this isn't somebody who clearly just came, chose to come to the campus and shoot a bunch of people up. so chances are this person has moved from hunter to hunted. even if he came to campus to shoot a particular person. so the people who are on campus should just sit tight and be safe where they are. but the likelihood that an individual is sticking around on campus to commit more carnage or to shoot a bunch of people, i don't think that's what we're dealing with here. i think we're dealing with an individual perhaps with a grievance with another individual. >> thank you very much, i'm going to bring in frank figliuzzi who unfortunately knows these situations very well himself. so, frank, to the point that catherine was making, they probably know who this guy is. so what are they doing now? are they going to search through anything they can from a social media profile, see if there's any sort of statements that have been made, do they go to his home? talk with people with whom he either lives or works, i mean, what are they doing right now? >> all of the above to answer concisely, chris, but right now they're talking to assistant district attorney, they're saying we might need a search warrant to get into certain locations. now, if he's got a house on campus, that might negate the need for a search warrant, depending on what's locked and not locked in that room. certainly they are going to be going to houses, parents' homes, talking to friends, i think it's a correct assumption that if we have seen his photo, they've got his name, and we're going to be looking for all the typical motivations that may sound illogical to us, and quite logical to him. katherine is great talking about the baggage that leaks out. many who know him may not be surprised by this. i use these opportunities to tell people we have got to become more aware of the warning signs and indicators that someone is on the pathway to violence, and it's likely that people won't be surprised when they hear this guy's name. >> just fyi, it's alex here, i don't mind at all being confused with chris jansing because she's such a pro. >> i'm so sorry. >> it's all right. it's all good. >> frank, let me ask you how definitely they have to be handling this with regard to the police presence and how they move forward. the reality is police get criticized all the time with excessive use of force, and in this case, we have someone who has allegedly fired one shot. that's all we know that's been reported. nobody has been injured. this person, if they have a handgun on their person, that means they're dangerous, they're being described as armed and dangerous. how carefully do authorities have to move in if and when they find him, and do they go into this thinking, we can't just shoot him unless he were to open fire or do something first, right? they've got to do this carefully. >> yeah, the use of force policies certainly apply, and i can tell you, with a campus as large as unc and a sophisticated police department there, they are well versed in handling student incidents, and they are trained somewhat differently in terms of city police as to the campus environment, the fact that they have very young people there, some of whom do really stupid things sometimes on campus. and so they don't necessarily respond, but the same as a city officer, but i have to tell you, if it's true that this person fired a round, he is armed and dangerous. and they will have to treat him like that. they'll beware of their surroundings, of course, as any officer would be, with regard to innocent people around, but the other thing is they go about trying to get to locations, even an apartment on or off campus, housing a vehicle, they've got to have in the forefront of their minds, the possibility of bobby traps. has this person set something up. is it likely? maybe not. but you can't just go crashing into a door or breaking a window on a car because you've got to sense whether there's a problem or threat with that. they'll likely use a bomb dog at locations to make sure that officers are not going to be injured. >> let me ask you quickly, you mentioned a vehicle, how long, frank, would it take for authorities to put perhaps ownership of a vehicle, leasing a vehicle, renting a vehicle, anything like that together with the suspect because when you look at this campus size, i mentioned it being 729 acres, it's 3.2 kilometers from one end to the next, so if he's on foot, he's got to hoof it to try to get someplace off campus and hide. are they looking for vehicles at this time as well? >> no question. it would only take a matter of minutes if not less, once you have the person's name, and f course if the school is going to confirm this is a graduate student or some association with the school, faculty, et cetera, they're going to have other identifiers, and once you get those, you're in the data base for the driver's license and you've got the car identified. even more so, if he has a parking pass for campus, which he might, he might have a designated spot. he might be in grad school parking. he might be in school of engineering or wherever he is, and that helps narrow things down. of course what's called a bolo, be on the lookout will go out statewide, perhaps regionally for this vehicle. so officers who encounter the vehicle on the street will know what they're dealing with. >> rob, let me ask you since you know the area, and again you have two children who are affiliated with the campus. fortunately not there on campus today. they both have reached you. they're safe and secure, but we're getting word that the entire public school system of chapel hill has been put on lockdown right now, and i want to add it is the first day of classes, here we are. another day, another school shooting. fortunately, in this case, on the unc campus at this point, we have no reports of a shot fired, and nobody having been injured. julia ainsley observed there are no ambulances on the campus, though a heavy police presence. talk about sort of the ripple effect, rob, for something like this, not only from just a community point of view but with regard to the fbi, i mean, you're going to have to start focusing on a number of different issues, right, as you look for this suspect. >> well, the priority right now is to find them, so motivation and all of those things will come. but right now is locating them and securing them. so what they're looking at now is they probably know two things, they know a phone number, most likely, and they know if he has a car, what that car is and a license plate. those are important. they're going to start using cellular technology to look at the phone. they have gone up to request an emergency warrant to start tracking the cell phone. they do it by towers and location and something like this. they're phenomenal, they have gotten really good at that. that's what's going on. that's what the federal side is, why the campus is trying to secure places. and then there's a car. there's a couple of things you can do with the car. there's things out there called license plate readers, they do them for all kinds of things, they can start tracking a license plate. if they know the car and they can look around the campus, did he bring it there? if he brought it there, is it still there, did they find it on the street somewhere, and now they know he's not in his car, and then they can start, again, pinging the license track readers, it's all kinds of things from parking enforcement, and other places that have these license plate readers that they can get realtime hits on a license plate if it's moving, and then they'll have a location. i think the biggest thing would be with the cell phone. they're going to start tracking that, and they're going to try to start pinning down where he's at. other things coming in with a warrant or through social media, if he's taking pictures, if he's geo tagged them, they can look for that. they can look for it if he's posted something. >> how about surveillance video there on the campus, do they need a warrant for that or because this is on the campus. >> no. >> they can go with that right away. do you have any idea how extensive the surveillance cameras are on campus. you would think they're pretty extensive these days? >> there's probably thousands of cameras across that campus, and they're going to have to start going from where he was at a known time to pushing it out, and if they have a description of what he's wearing, that's going to be very good. it also depends if their artificial intelligence on those cameras, some of them you can plug in, gray sweatshirt and blue jeans, and your cameras can tell you, if those are matching. depending on if the cameras or in the server rooms, if that artificial intelligence is on there, if they have that. they're getting better. i'm sure some of the cameras are older, the software on the other side can help with that. >> can i ask you how long, rob, you think they're going to have to keep this heavy, heavy footprint. at what point do you think they can say, and maybe it's not until they have him in custody, that it's okay, the campus, we have cleared enough students. we have locked down buildings. there's really not many places he would be able to hide. how long would that take on a campus this size. or do they even go there at any point before they have them in custody? >> i wouldn't go there. something would have to give them almost defendable evidence somewhere else. it would have to be something else. you don't want to risk it. even though you're clearing a big building, is it clear. those buildings are impossible, the dorms and things. he knows the campus, he has been on the campus. he would know where to hide. he would know some of the areas that are tough to search. something would really have to point them outward that he's not there. you also mentioned that, i saw a text or an x saying that it's my child's first day in kindergarten and they're on lockdown. you also have all of these neighborhoods out there on lockdown, parents trying to get to the schools, and there i think you're going to have to start looking at security around that. do you release them to the parents to get home, and it's not right on the campus. it is a tough tactical problem until you have him. >> let me ask you, with regard to fbi and their ability to go and help, would they at all ever take the lead in trying to get kids that are at the chapel hill public school system that's in lockdown again, day one, their first day of school. would the fbi clear them and get kids ushered to safety and get them to their parents or would that be a local police duty? >> absolutely. that's a local police duty but it's more the school district itself. there's no indication that there's a threat with regard to the students or the schools and the elementary schools around there, whether they're private or public. it's more a question of methodically moving children safely into the hands of their families, and so the school district obviously at this time of day, is at a point where school is being called for the day, and they have to make a decision about how do they methodically do that. that will be at the school level, and of course they will be asking for local police to provide comfort and security as those transfers are made. i think it will take time to do that. i think one of the things that's the challenge right now, and you see from your own camera view is that there's a lot of law enforcement from different agencies that are on the campus already, and, you know, a situation where there are so many people moving and walking around on the campus, that you could say to yourself, how big of a perimeter do police have, instead of having a building where they have an individual and they've closed that perimeter off for the building, we are faced as we often are with these kinds of shootings with the exact opposite. we have something that may have occurred in a building, and then every place outside of it is a potential risk because it's an unknown. michigan university campus shooter who shot eight, killed three, walked four miles from campus, four miles he walked for three hours before they were able to with putting a mug shot up and identify him on the ground and go to where he was. you have to make a judgment call at some point to elect people to move and that should be coming on soon with the schools. >> okay. excuse me, catherine, rob, jim, sorry guys, a little bit of a frog in my throat. we're going to take a short break. we'll be right back with more coverage of the shelter in place at the university of north carolina. we're not taking a break because of me. see, it's already getting better. we'll be right back. it's alrea better we'll be right back. made it smell like dave was in his happy place... ...the massage chair at the mall. but...he wasn't. gain flings with oxi boost and febreze. 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>> that's why we have to be so careful in moments like these because it's more important to be accurate than to be first because think about all of the parents and families who know people on this campus, or in this community who want to make sure they're safe, so what we know at this point is exactly what you laid out, the suspect remains at large. there were reports that a suspect was in custody. there were even pictures of this suspect being arrested. but the latest we have and this is just two minutes ago was from the alert carolina system, that's what they sent out across the campus, saying that the suspect remains at large and that anyone in that community should continue to shelter it place. so let's go with what the authorities are telling everyone to stay safe. this is an ongoing situation. this person who they say, they're not calling a shooting suspect, but rather a person of interest and an armed and that person is who you see on your screen. that is who we are going with now. one person was wounded. i have been looking at how they source that. this is the student paper at unc. there was one shot fired that they heard over the radio of the local fire department and ems. unclear where they got that information. we have nothing to report. no injuries or fatalities. that does not mean that no one was hurt. we are just sharing information as accurately as we can as soon as we can get it. hopefully they will have someone in custody soon they can talk about. we are not there yet. hopefully a press conference will give us more information. >> not heard anything even to answer questions that they say they do not know and do not have a suspect in custody. >> anyone who has a colleague, friend, family member, little you know, reports from hospitals locally there, they were not received any patients. let's be clear, no reports of anyone having been injured. one shot is all that was her that was fired. three hours ago. incredible presence there. and has affected students. she is a student there at unc. you are still in lockdown. is not the case. >> has, we are still in lockdown as of right now. >> how did you first hear about that? what went through your mind as you did? >> this whole time i have been in my apartment which is looking right over campus. i can see all of the helicopters and everything. this is the last thing that i thought was going to happen. i was just sitting here doing some work what time the communications director for. i looked down at my phone, getting all these tax from people saying, that is when i got the alert from the carolina notification that there was an active shooter. and that we were to shelter in place. basically no communication since then. >> we have gotten word that among the things that are told for you to do, stay away from windows, doors, and the like. review venture to your window to look out there and see what's going on? >> i have open my blinds. i've picked out. it is eerily quiet out there. there are just lease vehicles, no people walking down the street. very uncommon for a college campus. it is definitely a surreal interaction. >> do you feel like you are getting enough information? do you feel safe where you are? >> i feel relatively safe where i am. unfortunately, the patient has been very little. we have been listening to the orange county pd and ems which is where a lot of us are getting some information. it is still very limited. >> local schools there not far from the campus, the public school system is on lockdown right now. are you aware of any campuses? elementary school through high school that are near the university campus? >> i know about several schools here that are still in lockdown. it is very unfortunate because it is very early on in our year. i really feel for all of these young students that all this work they are terrified of right now. >> i want to thank you for your time and how glad we are that you are safe. you woke up this morning and the last thing you expected with something like this happen. is this something that you think about these days? have you grown up with this being in our society. kids worrying about it whether or not they can get shot? >> absolutely. it has been more of a recent development in my high school years. it is something that you never expect but you are always in fear of. >> i hope your parents are aware that you've been talking to us safely and that you communicated with them. being a parent of kids myself, that would be my first thought. make sure that your kids are safe. good luck in the school year. we hope that this gets resolved soon. stay in your apartment as they are telling you to do. thank you for your time. i want to get back to some of my experts. also our reporter, julia ainslie. julia, anything to update before i go to the law enforcement experts? >> i would like to affiliate is that the shooter is in custody. our affiliate says that they are in custody. they have pictures and they have the shooter handcuffed and put into the car. they are calling them the shooter. the affiliate reporting that the shooter is in custody. >> let's go over this again. this is one of those things that i mentioned earlier to the viewers, we got some details, you are attributing the confirmation to the affiliate and not to you at msnbc news. they have photos? does iphoto match the photo of the person that is a suspect? person of interest? >> i'm hoping we can get this soon. there is a photo we have of someone sitting on the ground. it is hard to see the exact level of detail that we might need. the suspect with his back towards the camera. we are putting this on our affiliate. it is hard for everyone to follow these levels. we feel comfortable that telling you the affiliate and the shooter is in custody based on this photo evidence they have put on their website. from what you are able to see with that photo we are yet to have access to, was this an on- campus location? where this person was handcuffed? that you described as an asian male with a gray shirt? >> i cannot tell. i wish we had more detail. >> this has got to bring a sigh of relief from some point. three hours since the start. given the landscape, the large neighbor of this campus. how effective has the police work being? are you confident that this person is in custody? attributing to our affiliate there? >> i will hope that we are all relieved because the local affiliate has it right. we need confirmation from law enforcement. really, that needs to happen. three hours from hard work and commanders means they do not have time for the press conference. the campus, the community, all of us, we need to hear this person is in custody and is no longer a threat. what was this about? was anybody injured? when you hear about a single shot, that is the reporting we have right now. it goes to a single target. targeted attempt to hurt one person. was this accidental? accidental discharges happen with weapons. we do not know anything except for this, a massive police response, what does that tell us? a reflection of where we are right now in our society. the sound of the gunshot gets this response out. >> i completely agree. we are getting word from the school system. they have received the all clear which means the dismissal process will begin for elementary and middle school. high schools will dismiss at their normal time. that is right about now. i want to thank all of our guests for taking us through this newshour. if it is 4:00 p.m., it is a wrap for me. good night whitehouse starts right now. -- good night, everyone. we will go to a developing situation with an eye trained on the university of north carolina campus. a report of a single shot fired. police right now search for someone they are calling a person of interest who is still at large. this is an evolving situation. conflicting reports, we will not report them until we have confirmation. no word on injuries. the hospital spokesperson says that no one has been