nightclub. frankly we've heard conflicting information on that. i think the main point here to make is we've heard no confirmation that they did in fact find explosives. some officials say that search isn't done yet. others say no explosives were found. i think the best way to say it is there's no confirmation that there were explosives and it may turn out that there weren't. i think there was initial thinking that perhaps he was wearing an explosive vest but it may turn out that that was more of a bulletproof type vest. we're still waiting to hear about that. secondly, the authorities have said that he had two weapons, a handgun and ar-15 assault style weapon. we have now been told that he had high capacity magazines or clips, if you will. these are the devices that you attach to the weapon that hold the rounds. florida has no law restricting the size of capacity magazines for these weapons and there is no federal restriction on it either, so all the indications we have at this point is that the weapons were legally obtained because we don't know of any disqualifying fact in mateen's background. but we're also told that the trace of the weapons is either not started yet or just now getting under way. and that's going to take some time to figure out where he -- where and when he acquired these weapons. did he buy them himself, did somebody else buy them for him, how were they acquired, and that's going to be something that will be worked out here. now, i think very importantly, one of our nbc news producers contacted mateen's father in florida a couple of hours ago who had quite a lot to say saying, first of all, he wanted everyone to know that the family is shocked by this and that they apologize and they think this is terrible. they have no sign this was coming. but as for motive, he says that he can only speculate and thinks that it goes back a couple of months ago to when he the father, mateen the son, and mateen's son, young son, were in miami. according to the father, saw men kissing, touching each other. that outraged mateen. he said to his father they are doing this in front of me and my son. his father thinks that this in other words is what touched this off, that this was some type of anti-gay hate crime. but the question, of course, is was that all there is, was something else in his past that led mateen up to this point. we do know that the fbi looked at him in some way three years ago, that he was on some kind of watch list. what we believe is he was on that watch list or was being looked at because the fbi was introducing other people with whom mateen had been in contact, not so much a focus on him but someone else and he was in their orbit. that's the information that we have. that is something that we're told by investigators here just within the past couple of minutes that they still haven't decided whether this is a hate crime, an act of domestic terrorism or what. in talking here, willie, i'm now told that the president is apparently going to make a statement in about an hour and a half at about 1:30 eastern time. >> we've just learned that as well, pete. the president will be in the briefing room in about 90 minutes from right now. i think we've got jim miklaszewski at the white house. mik, are you there? mik, can you hear me, it's willie? i don't think we have -- we don't have jim miklaszewski in. let me go back to pete williams. i think an important distinction you just made, pete, yes, he was in a database, omar mateen, but not the subject of any direct investigation. he may have been peripherally related to someone else they were looking at. is that fair to say? >> well, that's the initial word we had. you may think back, the initial press conference this morning, the initial statement, the first public statement by officials was at about 7:00 this morning and they were pretty quick to say that they were looking at possible islamic influences in mateen's past. the fact that they were able to say that so quickly is a reflection of the fact that he was in some kind of watch list or some kind of database. but that's all they knew at that point. and of course it's going to take a long time now to try to figure out pro sies -- precisely what motives and movements were, why that place, why orlando, all those questions to be answered. >> let's try again with jim miklaszewski outside the white house. mik, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, willie. it was hours ago now that the white house issued a statement that the president had been briefed early this morning on the mass shooting, that tragic shooting there in orlando. and that he had taken some initial steps, in other words, ordering the fbi and all appropriate agencies to provide whatever assistance they could in terms of the investigation and that process, but also offering some relief, some kind of relief to the community and those families who are so stricken by this mass shooting there in orlando. we have yet to hear from the president himself. it's not certain, we have no indication that he plans to make a public statement or even issue a written statement of some kind. one would suspect that perhaps he's waiting until all the details are in, until he has a firm idea of what investigators believe happened here. after all, we're hearing a couple of different versions now about this may have been a crime instigated by the shooter, opposition to gays and lesbians, or could it be that he has some foreign ties given his afghanistan heritage. so all of that has yet to be worked out. and i'm sure that the president doesn't want to get ahead of the investigators, but there are people here who anticipate that since this is the worst mass shooting in u.s. history, that we would in fact hear the president in some manner sometime today. >> all right. we'll be looking for that from the briefing room in less than 90 minutes. mik, thanks so much. gabe gutierrez has been on the scene in orlando all morning long for us. gabe, what's the latest down there? >> reporter: hi there, willie. authorities have just released part of the scene or at least have allowed the media and bystanders to get just a bit closer to the scene, which is about a block and a half from me. the perimeter had been sealed off throughout the morning. but as the police chief said during that briefing, they have now been able to go through the scene, process it and detect that there were no explosives found in that scene. however, the processing of the nightclub will continue for a long time to come. it was clear that the magnitude of this is really sinking in, even with investigators, with that death toll climbing from 20 people dead earlier this morning in that first briefing we heard around 7:00 and then the last briefing we heard, that death toll climbing to 50 people. so again, the investigation right now into what the motive is, as you mentioned, pete, reporting that this suspect, his father says that it could have been possible that perhaps some of the motivation may have been that he saw this couple kissing in miami several months ago. but again, authorities have not confirmed whether it could be that, whether this is being investigated as part of a larger threat. so right now here at the scene, it's still a very active scene behind me. witnesses have been telling us that it was extremely chaotic, a lot of confusion among family members. 50 families, again, are waiting for word. there has been a center set up for those families to go to if they need information. as we have seen from previous reports, people are lining up here in orlando to donate blood. again, at least 53 people injured here. so that suspect found with that assault-style rifle, that handgun as well and there's a question of that suspicious device. as pete mentioned, we have had no confirmation from authorities whether that was indeed an explosive device. all authorities have said is it was a suspicious device. throughout the morning we had been seeing a robot, explosive-detecting robot here on the scene and we've seen that through aerial pictures as well. so again, authorities here have opened up at least part of the perimeter within the last few minutes, but they are still processing this very large complex investigation at this nightclub where at least 50 people have been killed. 53 others have been wounded. the largest mass shooting in u.s. history. >> gabe, you mentioned that nbc news did get in touch with omar mateen's father who gave his assessment of the situation. you laid it out pretty well and said he'd seen two men kissing in miami. that's the father's opinion. that's probably one piece of the puzzle that law enforcement is looking at. the other side of this, we have the investigation on one side, but the side we're thinking about is the human side of it. you had 300 some people according to police, 320 was the number they put out earlier today that were in that nightclub last night out for a saturday night having a good time when at 2:00 in the morning these shots rang out. some of them thought it was part of the music. they thought it was a new song with loud volume. it turned out obviously to be something much worse and something much more horrific, but there are many stories like his. we'll hear a bouncer apparently, we're reading from some eyewitnesses knocked down a partition between the club area and a staff-only, employee-only area and allowed some people to flee out the back door. there will be stories of survival amidst the 50 deaths we've seen in orlando. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, willie. a lot of people are point towards that law enforcement officer, that uniformed officer working security at the club. he engaged the suspect. during that news conference, the authorities there said that he could have potentially saved more lives, despite the high death toll here. so certainly stories of survival, stories of heroism. some of the witnesses that we've spoken to say once they realized that it was gunshots going right -- gunshots were happening at that nightclub, they just dropped to the floor and had to crawl out. some of them had to tend to the injured. we spoke with one man, christopher hansen, who took off his bandana and tried to assist this person who had a gunshot wound. to this point he still doesn't know what became of that person, whether he survived. another mother who was here at the perimeter, she was frantically trying to get ahold of her son who was in that nightclub. she could not get ahold of him. so this is the emotion of the scene. people are still trying to figure out what happens to their loved ones. again, some of them are streaming to a location that's been set up for family members. and also throughout the morning to give you a sense of the scale of this investigation, a scale of what orlando pd detectives had to go through, they had to bus some of the witnesses to the police department to get their information. so certainly this investigation will be going on for quite some time and we're all concerned to hear much more from those eyewitnesses at the squheen described a horrifying tragedy. willie. >> gabe, we'll give you a break. i want to bring in jim cavanaugh, an nbc news law enforcement expert. you've been watching this all morning long with us. jim, good to have you back in the conversation. law enforcement talked about the hostage situation that took place inside pulse nightclub from 2:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. before they decided to send s.w.a.t. in. we just learned in that most recent press conference that there was communication between law enforcement and omar mateen, the shooter who was inside. what would those conversations have been like based on your experience? >> well, usually they start off very simple like what's your name, what's the first name of the negotiator. let's slow everything down and work this out. if in fact they are talking to mateen. sometimes they'll only let them talk to other hostages there and then the assailant, mateen, could relay, tell the police to get back, tell the police to get out. if they're having a direct conversation, willie, direct on the phone, cell phone to cell phone, they're trying to calm it down and make sure killing is not going on. all the time they're doing that, they're trying to get in place so they can apprehend him. so it's simple. i'm jim, you're omar. look, we've got to stop. why are you doing this? let's slow this thing down. how many people are in there? who's in there with you? just kind of a general conversation. you've got to drop the emotional level to try to get some reasoning into the person's mind. but it's very difficult. imagine a person who has just killed 50 people. so it's very, very difficult to have a negotiation and it probably broke down or did not prove very fruitful. they might have got a little time to get their s.w.a.t. operators in place, but probably not much and they had to make a move. >> police at the news conference were not able to make a distinction of how many people had already been killed before the hostage standoff took place. were all 50 already dead during the hostage situation? they didn't quite know or didn't want to say yet. what is -- i know how difficult this call is, but what is the distinction? what is the point at which law enforcement says this guy has already killed a bunch of people, he's likely to kill more, we need to go in and take him out? >> it's the essential element of the on-scene commander who has to read the escalation and de-escalation of the event. issues like the assailant will not communicate directly with the negotiator is not a sign of de-escalation. if he will talk with the negotiator, if they can establish a rapport, if they can call each other by name, if they can -- if he can say what he wants, if we can slow things down, there's a little bit of de-escalation there and also is he shooting his gun in there, is he saying i'm going to kill a hostage in five minutes, is he acting completely erratically, all these little things and tips that the on-scene commander -- think of the on-scene commander and the way this works sits there as a triad. across from you is the chief negotiator and the tactical supervisor. and it's like a triangle. and the chief negotiator and tactical supervisor are giving intelligence. you have an intelligence officer as well. what are the long rifle teams seeing, what are the s.w.a.t. operators seeing, what's the negotiators hearing, what are the people calling and telling us, and we're making a decision right here at a table or on the street and we're running the thing from this tactical command post on scene. we're making those decisions right there. that's the right place where they're made. they don't go up to the chief and they don't go up to the sheriff or to washington, they're made right there by the on-scene commander. when they read that there's escalation and time is ticking against people's lives, they make a decision to go. >> you've anticipated my next question. i know you don't have firsthand knowledge of what those conversations were like between law enforcement and the team last night, but what is the kind of thing that would trigger the order to send s.w.a.t. in after three hours? >> his erratic actions, his failure to engage with the negotiators, no good signs of de-escalation, maybe some signs of escalation. he could be appearing at windows with a rifle pointed out and acting erratically and also the calls from the 15 people inside in the bathroom who were calling the police and saying we're trapped in the bathroom. that weighs heavily on the tactical commander's decision because if this guy starts shooting, even everybody who he has in a room. he could make it across and shoot all those other 15 people too. so they have to decide, we've got to make a move here. and of course it turned out to be the right decision. but unfortunately, he already had 103 people shot. you know, how that happened, if anybody gets shot after negotiations began, we don't know. we don't know when and where and that's what the investigation will find out. >> jim cavanaugh, we're lucky to have your perspective today. stick with us. we want to bring in now joshua mcgil, a witness to the shooting and helped rescue people last night. josh, we appreciate you taking some time on this horrible day for you. tell me where you were when the shooting started. >> my two roommates and i were in the very corner of the main bar near the patio exit. so it's like basically there's an outdoor bar and we were kind of next to the door leading out. when the shooter happened, we didn't see anything and we didn't really think it was a shooting at first because we didn't see -- no one seemed to really be frantic. but then we still all kind of ducked because of the loud noise. but we went outside to the back patio area, gathered our thoughts and then we heard a couple more gunshots and that's when we saw people running saying, you know, there's a gun, there's a shooter, and then people are hopping over the back patio fence to run away. at this time there's police already setting up perimeters for like safe zones, et cetera. my roommates and i actually originally ran into the pulse employee area, which was like a back door, and we were kind of hiding out in there and then we heard shooting get closer from inside, so we ran back out and that's when we hopped the fence. when we hopped the fence, my two roommates bolted. i was still a little staggering because it was a high fence for me to jump over. during my run across the parking lot, i did hear more shooting and it kind of frightened me, so my first instinct was to jump behind a car and duck. during that process is when i just decided to crawl under the car and i just waited it out. once the shooting got further from what it sounded like, i kind of gave a peek around and crawled out. that's when i noticed, i guess, another club goer. he was kind of staggering. i noticed he was covered in blood. i kind of like crept over to him and said, hey, i'm here to help you, what's going on? we crept back, hid behind the car. he was like i think i got shot. and it did turn out he got shot once, once in one arm and once again in the other arm. my first instinct was we've got to stop the bleeding, man, and get you to the hospital or get you to the nearest police officer. and so i took my shirt off and then tied it around his first arm to stop the bleeding. then i asked if i could have his shirt so i could tie it around his other arm. then he went ahead to complain of pain on his back and it turned out he got shot again on his back. so i was like we've got to get you to a safe zone and then to the hospital to control this bleeding, et cetera. so we did that and then we kind of like dodged and weaved through the parking lot. an officer told us to stay down, stay down. another stand-by person was just kind of ducking over across the street. i was like, hey, i need another shoot because he has another open wound. at that point the officer was like we are going to escort you guys to the e.r. through a police car. he's like whenever -- he's like i want you to lay down and i want to throw him on top of you so that way i can bear hug him and make sure it's tight and he doesn't bleed out as much. during the rush over to the e.r., the police officers were just keep him conscious, keep talking to him. so that's how i got his name. i was like hey, what's your name, you're going to be okay. i'm josh. he was like i'm rodney. i'm like where are you from? how old are you? he's 27, jacksonville, florida. i was like any siblings? who do you live with? he's like my brother. i told him i'm from mississippi originally, i'm 26, et cetera, told him everything is going to be okay. and we're almost to the e.r. i told him i'm not sure if you're religious or not, but i want to say a prayer for you to make sure that you're okay. i'm not sure if his mumbling was a prayer or not or if he was just delusional, but we got to the e.r. pretty quick. i helped get him out of the car and onto a stretcher and that was that. i waited around forever at the hospital. they wouldn't give me any information. i didn't even know his last name last night at all. it turns out that my facebook post has gone viral and it turns out one of his friends that he was with commented and i reached out to them. i got his last name. it is sumter, s-u-m-t-e-r. they got in touch with his family. they gave me an update that, yes, he was shot and, yes, he was stable. so that's the update i got, that he is fine. i hope he stays fine and stays stable and that he comes out quickly. >> my gosh, josh, you saved his life. you saved that man's life. paint the picture for me in that police car. you were grasping him to stop the bleeding? >> yeah. it was kind of like we're both laying on the back of the police car. there's blood all over it. he basically -- his arms are tied with two t-shirts and i'm bear hugging him to stop the bleeding with the other shirt on his back. i was talking to him and kind of like rocking him a little bit to keep him conscious. the more i talked to him, he was pretty responsive. he gave me his name. i didn't really get the details because the hospital is maybe five minutes away if that, so it was really brief. we got there as quick as possible. >> josh, where do these instincts come from? i think a lot of people would have run for their lives and tried to save themselves. but you saw a man staggering with three gunshot wounds and decided to save his life last night. >> i'm not really sure. maybe it was just an adrenaline rush in the moment. everyone has the fight or flight moment in them. i definitely did flight at first when i jumped the fence and ran for it, but during the process i heard more gunshots so i hid. i don't know if it was meant to be for me to be there and hide, but i do have a passion for medical. i am a nursing student. i do have some cpr training, so i kind of knew stopping the bleeding was the main goal so i definitely kicked it into high gear with the adrenaline rush going and everything. it didn't really faze me at the time until i saw him get rushed into the hospital. that's when i had my breakdown. and then i just kind of like got it together after that. >> what do you mean you had your breakdown. what happened? >> i think the adrenaline rush wore off and then i realized that there was a shooting and that i was covered in blood and it was kind of scary, so i had -- i have a panic attack disorder and i started having one and they had to sit me down and tell me to breathe easy and take deep breaths. eventually i calmed down and whatnot, so it was -- it wasn't horrible. i didn't like have a total freak-out but it was like a slap in the face like, wow, this really all just happened. >> god bless you, josh, you saved his life last night. how are your friends doing? you said you were there with two roommates. were they injured at all in the shooting? >> not at all. they actually hopped over, ran for it. they got into the safe ground. they actually thought something happened to me because i wasn't behind them any longer. that's because i was hiding. and once they got past the police perimeter, no one was allowed to go back into the war zone over there. but i did, once i got to the hospital and kind of cleaned the blood off, i called them and let them know that i helped someone and that i'm at the hospital just because i was -- i did help rescue him and bring him to the hospital, they needed my witness statement, so i had to stay there and give written and verbal ones all until like 7:00 a.m. this morning. >> we're about 10 1/2 hours after this shooting started at 2:00 in the morning in the club where you were when you made your dash for your life. have you heard other stories from people inside, people who may have been injured, people who may have escaped? >> one of the bartenders i know got shot in the leg. he's actually on footage with one of our news teams. another one i heard was injured but not shot. as far as anything i've heard through social media, there were a few of the performers that were climbing through the air ventilation system to escape through the ac unit. >> wow. >> i did hear that there was at least 15 people barricaded in a bathroom with the door held shut. as far as anything else, i'm not really sure, it's all hearsay right now. but that's as far as i know on anything else. >> did i hear you right, you said some people inside the club climbed out through air ducts? did they make it out? >> yes, yes. they did make it out. >> and when you heard the shooting begin, i mean obviously your brain doesn't go there right away because, my god, how could it. you can't imagine you're being shot at in a nightclub when you're having a good time. when did it register at first and when did you realize this is something much worse? >> at first it was like a bam, bam, bam. so we thought maybe there was like some sound difficulties with the speakers, maybe a speaker blew, maybe someone was being a jokester and lit off a firecracker, i'm not sure. we did kind of do like a little heads up because we didn't know what it was and it didn't register until we snuck outside just to like kind of be in a safer zone when we heard more of the bam, bam and then that's when we saw people running and jumping the fence and saying there's someone has a gun, there's a shooting and that's when it was like, oh, wow. >> it's an incredible story, josh. we're so grateful given all you've been through in the last few hours that you would stop by and share your story and your heroism. again, you saved a man's life last night. thank you for being with us. >> yes, sir, not a problem. thank you. florida officials doing another press briefing right now, including with governor scott. let's listen in. >> so this is clearly an act of terrorism. it's sickening. it should make every american angry. this should never happen anywhere in our country. the first thing you think about is you just can't imagine what these families are going through. the families are still waiting to find out what happened to their loved ones. the most important thing we can do right now as law enforcement is doing their job and health care workers are doing everything they can for the victims is pray for everybody. thank god we have the law enforcement we have. the state, the orange county police department, the sheriff's department, fdle, all the federal agencies. everybody has coordinated their activities very well. it's heroic the individuals that went into the building knowing there was an active shooter. so we need to be very thankful that there are individuals willing to risk their lives to save other lives and clearly saved other lives. for anybody that thinks that they should do this, i can tell you the state of florida, the local law enforcement will be swift in their justice. we have great law enforcement in our state and they're always going to do the right thing. i declared a state of emergency for orange county. we're going to provide all the resources that anyone needs. but i can tell you everybody is going to work together. that's one thing great about our state, orlando, orange