>> nicolle, we know at this time there are multiple people injured and we know from three law enforcement sources that preliminarily there are double digits the amount of people injured as a result of this shooting called in at 2:34 p.m. today. this shooting happened at the office complex where this newspaper is. law enforce. has not confirmed the shooting happened inside the newspaper offices, but we know from the reporters at the paper say the shooting happened inside their office. we're going off of those reports for that information. at this time, this is always preliminary information. this is always information that is subject to change. we don't have any reports of confirmed fatalities. there have been some reports that there are -- have been some deaths as a result of the shooting. at this point we don't have that confirmed. i just talked to the public spokesperson for the ems just a few minutes ago and he said that at this point he hadn't had any confirmed fatalities reported to him. we know that the suspect is believed to be a white male and that that suspect is in custody. as far as what weapon that suspect had, we don't have that information confirmed yet. a little bit of some conflicting reporting there so we're going to stay away from that for now. and as far as any other information about the suspect, the suspect's age or any sort of i have, motive, i think it's too early to talk about that at this point. the headline is there are injuries as a result of the shooting that's been reported at the newspaper complex. >> i want to bring in tom costello who has been following this shooting today since minutes after it happened. tom, can you add your body of reporting from what occurred? >> we have been closely monitoring the capital gazette because this is, of course, the site of a local newsroom owned by the baltimore sun and some of the reporting came from somebody inside the capital gazette. phil davis, reporter who says most recently tweeted out the following. gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. can't say much more and i don't want to declare anybody dead, but it's bad. then said, quote, there is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you are under your desk and then hearing the gunman reload. from our nbc station in washington, d.c., wrc, they are now reporting from baltimore shock trauma hospital. they are treating at least one individual at shock trauma in baltimore. that is the main shock trauma is the main trauma center for the state of maryland with the state trooper medevac helicopters flying there whenever they have a patient across maryland. this is about, i'm told, 15 minutes or so from the state capital, to give you a sense of annapolis. annapolis, of course, one of america's oldest and most historic capitals. we can tell you that it's right across the street from the mall, from the annapolis mall and they have been telling individuals once they wanted to reunite with family or friends to go to the annapolis mall, to do that. but this has all been playing out over the course of the past hour and a half with varying reports of injuries and fatalities and we simply don't have a firm number on either one right now. but it does appear that something tragic has gone down at the capital gazette newspaper there in annapolis. >> it sure does. you have something now? >> nicolle, two things. senior new york city law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the matter says the n.y.p.d. out of an abundance of caution is sending units to major news outlets in new york city. obviously we have a shooting in a newspaper. we have, you know, a charged environment in our country. and so i think the n.y.p.d. just out of an abundance of caution, all major news networks are located -- we're right across the street from fox news, vice versa. we're not far from abc. getting information about the is expec -- suspect, that person is a white male. we have senior law enforcement people saying they believe at this point in the investigation the weapon used was a shotgun. at this point we're getting some details as far as the weapon that was used. we have a suspect that's in custody at this point. and i think tom has laid out as far as perfectly exactly what we're dealing with with respect to injuries. so that's the information that we have so ferrarar. it's preliminary. the investigation is just getting started. we're going to continue to listen to see what we hear. >> quite remarkable. that's usually the practice when there is a terror attack that you harden the similar targets in different cities. interesting that new york city is hardening the protection around news organizations here. >> the n.y.p.d. has a history of whenever there's been any sort of threat -- i think -- and in no way do i want to suggest this has any relationship to terrorism. >> i mean the practice of hardening potential targets. >> exactly to your point, nicolle, whenever they have seen incidents in the past, whether it be social media, whether it be an incident that's occurred somewhere else in the country, if it has involved media organizations, the n.y.p.d. which trains tremendous amount for active shooter situations does make it a point to say, you know what, we have extra officers, we have 40,000 people strong, let's put a couple outside media organization. let's harden it up, to your point, and let's be there to let people know, you know, don't think about doing something else here in new york city. so very much -- exactly correct. >> tom costello, did you have something else you learned in the last couple minutes? we want to come back to you. >> two other points. baltimore p.d. is at the baltimore is up to provide security. much the same tom winter said is happening in new york. the reporter who we have been quoting, phil davis who is a gazette reporter there at the annapolis gazette, tweeted the following. a single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead. that just now from phil davis on twitter. the reporter who is therein side that newsroom, but has not wanted to speculate on how many are dead. >> okay. let me see if we can try to confirm that with lieutenant ryan frazier of the anne arundel county police department. do you have any information you can add to what we know here, that the shooter is in custody and there may be fatalities and there are certainly numerous injuries? >> yeah, at this point we have no new information from when we first arrived on scene. what i can tell you, what i can confirm is around 2:40 we were called, 888 westgate road. active shooter inside the building. once we arrived the officers quickly secured the building. we continue to get people outside the building. we're in evacuation mode right now. we're trying to secure the building the best we can. once the building is secure, once we're 100% the building is secured, that's when we'll be able to provide more information with the extent of injuries and information on the suspect. >> the suspect. at this point i can confirm we do have injuries. we did have an active shooter at that building, 888 best gate road in annapolis. we did have injuries, i can't give the extent of injuries at this point. we don't expect this, even though it's very early on to be a very -- have major casualties or several hundred casualties. but we do have injuries. i can confirm that. i'll get you as much information as possible. i just don't want to give you guys inaccurate at this point. that's the only reason i can't provide more. once the building is secure, we'll give more information whether the suspect is in fact in custody. that building is secure and we'll make sure we give everybody a quick briefing on the extent of the injuries and how many injuries. at this .1 of the main messages we want to get out to the public is one, avoid the area. okay. we have a lot of police officers here from our jurisdiction. we're very thankful for other jurisdictions, annapolis city police department, maryland state police, howard county, federal agencies. everyone has came here to make sure we get as many people safe as quickly as possible so we're asking family and friends to meet at the annapolis mall. if you need to meet up with a friend or loved one that was inside that building, reunification center has been set up inside the lord & taylor inside annapolis mall. we're asking everyone to respond to lord & taylor. we have officers there that will assist you with meeting up with friends and family. that's the biggest message we want to put out right now. we're doing our best to get the building secure and we should have information for you very shortly. and as soon as that building is secure we'll be able to provide more information. we appreciate everybody's patience and doing everything we can to get everybody out safe. >> lieutenant frazier, we have a picture up of you talking with us. we're grateful. joyce vance is also here, former u.s. attorney. what is your sense of sort of the tragedy wrapped in a blessing, i guess, we're getting so good at responding to mass shootings? >> it's amazing how many times we've seen these same people explaining these scenes to us. jim kavanagh was, of course, my atfac for many years and we were used to working far too many of these scenes. what's encouraging is to see the rapid law enforcement response. the efforts to contain the scene, to make sure nothing else is going on there. and then they'll begin to move on out and determine whether this perpetrator perhaps had other plots in motion or accomplices. so we'll see law enforcement move out. >> we're going to dip back into lieutenant frazier's briefing. i want to ask you one question, clint. i heard some of the conversation, the commentary and i heard all of you just in the moments after reciting some of the recent attacks on news organizations, not just in this country. tom winter mentioned the charged environment. obviously in paris they tack on -- i mean, this is part of the culture. this is part of the moment. >> yeah, the time when we used to wonder is this workplace violence? no, this isn't that simple. the calculation isn't that easy to make. we've seen media figures just in the last few days talk about maybe vigilante squad should attack the media. we don't know what's going on here and there are multiple angles to this. >> we got to speak to him and we'll see if lieutenant frazier has any new information in his briefing. all right. tom winter, are you learning anything new? >> no, i'll recap where we're at. shooting happened after 2:44 p.m. police got a call at this address that belongs to this newspaper. as we just heard from the briefing, nicolle, they don't expect major casualties. that's exactly what he said. we have not at this point, nbc news has not confirmed there are any fatalities. this is early on in the incident. we're coming on the air obviously only an hour and a half after it happened. it's still very early. we know we have several injuries. the injuries have been described ranging from five people to double digits of people that have been injured in this incident. and we do know we have a suspect that is in custody. >> is tom costello still with us? tom, i heard you report you have one confirmed account of someone being taken to a hospital. is that uncommon that we have only been able to track one victim being treated for injuries? >> well, i would make the following point. we are only aware of one transport to shock trauma in baltimore which is really the premiere trauma center in maryland. that doesn't mean that others weren't also transported to other area hospitals. if you go to shock trauma, chances are your injuries are quite serious. that's why they run there. it is entirely possible we'd have individual timz who have gone to other hospitals and i just don't have that information for you. >> joyce, are you processing this the way so many people in this country seem to process it, another mass shooting? to hear the word "another" before mass shooting is tragic. >> we've become desensitized. we've seen it so many times and it's important in each of these cases to focus on the individual victims, less so on the perpetrator, but to begin to find a way forward that lets us begin to curtail these kind of shootings, whether that's through legislation that they are looking into to restrict bump stocks. although here we hear the early report it was a shotgun thats what used. prosecutors and investigators will work together to determine whether that gun was lawfully purchased and possessed, why a shotgun was the gun of choice here, and we'll move forward. >> let me read some of the tweets from the individual tom costello first shared with us. phil davis, he works in that newsroom and he's tweeted a single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead. phil davis then tweeted gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. can't say much more. don't want to declare anyone dead. i guess he sent that one before, but is dead. and the one tom shared with us, nothing more terrifying multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and hear the gunman reload. these stories eerily similar to the parkland kids during the active shooter situation. i guess same question i had to joyce. where are we that we come on the air together, all of us, all too often and say we're here for another mass shooting? >> i can't count the number of times i've come in here to talk on another story and i've stayed here because there's been a mass shooting where we're covering it for hours. we always have the same questions, which is why are we doing this? our police are efficient at response because they have done it so many times now. we have developed tactics, techniques and procedures for a response. you're seeing the communication plan being executed very well by law enforcement today because they've seen it play out so many times. and yet we still can't get in front of this. we don't know who these shooters are when they show up at the door. we don't know why are they doing it. we don't understand the motives. in this case a shotgun. shotguns are far nmore lethal. if you're shot with a shotgun, your chance of survival are much less. that's why we hear about the catastrophic injuries. >> someone on the phone we turn to in tragic events, former police commissioner, commissioner, your former police department, new york police department, is hardening some of the news organizations in new york city out of an abundance of caution. but i wonder what you make of that and your comments on the fact that we are -- you and i together again covering another mass shooting. >> well, unfortunately this is becoming all too commonplace and shows no sign of diminishing going forward. the new york situation is a routine procedure now for new york when something happens elsewhere to respond to similar type locations. in this case the news media outlets getting extra coverage from the critical response command. no indication in the early stage it's a terrorist act. it is an abundance of caution in new york which we have very large resource s to do this. other major cities like los angeles, chicago are probably doing the same thing. as to the shooting in the newspaper office down there, preliminary information from law enforcement sources there may be as many as four dead, five others are on the way to the hospital. single gunman is the information i have. white male who surrendered to responding officers. motive at this time, who knows, which is always what we struggle with, why. and that will hopefully come out now that we have a live suspect in custody. whatever his motive or grudge, was it domestic, work-related, just -- who knows. >> commissioner, tom costello, tom winter, all referenced this charged environment in which we're operating in which journalists -- i don't know if this climate affected the capital gazette in annapolis where the shooting took place today. any thoughts you have about the climate, about the rhetoric in this country about news organizations? >> the climate makes it much more difficult for law enforcement, for example, in the sense of with so many guns, more guns than people. with so many people get so wrapped up in issues, whether it's politics. we just recently saw the president again attacking cnn -- so that doesn't help matters at all in terms of directing venom -- to be here in this case. and it's just -- compounds the problem. so many people get jinned up on words. and they have the resource s to make that action deadly as we've seen in this situation. the shotgun is one we see, hand gun, assault rifles. shotgun, though -- it's not buck shot, but holds nine balls. he shot and has nine projectiles. catastrophic damage in a close environment in the case here. >> just remarkable. commissioner bratton, thank you for joining us and adding your insight and experience to what we are covering once again, another mass shooting, this time at the capital gazette newspaper in annapolis, maryland. tom winter, have you learned anything new? >> i think it's recapping, nicolle, what i told you a few minutes ago. they are saying at this point it is preliminary, but they believe that the suspect, a white male was using a shotgun. the commissioner just detailed i think all too clearly exactly what a shotgun can do. and the damage that it can bring. and so at this point -- >> nine projectiles come out of a shotgun. >> yeah. absolutely. and obviously there are some modifications that can be made to them that can make them even more dangerous if that's possible to believe. so at this point that's the preliminary information we are hearing. as we just heard on camera and as i have heard from talking with ems officials there, they are not confirming any fatalities. i'm aware of and law enforcement circles, the information that is moving around as far as what the commissioner referred to as far as the four deaths, but i think at this point we're not ready to quite report that, at least i'm not, but we do know that multiple people have been injured and it happened at an office belonging to this newspaper. reporters at the newspaper have tweeted and you've read those as far as the shooting happening there. >> i want to talk to you, clint and joyce, both about these dueling -- you know, we have the sense as a culture that we're becoming numb to this, but we also have if these reports turnout not to be true, four families whose lives are potentially shattered forever. there will be the day before this happened, there will be before 2:43 p.m. on thursday, june 28, and there will be everything that comes next. so we should never, ever, ever sort of do anything to permit the -- becoming desensitized to these, each and every one of them. if one person lost their life today, if no one lost their life, people suffered horrific injuries, this is yet another mass shooting in america in 2018 in a climate where people spew hatred toward reporters, spew hatred toward the fbi, spew hatred toward the justice department and we bungle along like it is another day at the office. what is happening? >> they show up at protests with weapons. the common story, the fear after 9/11 was about terrorism. the common story of americans today is where they were when they witnessed a mass shooting or were they around it, were they at a school, were they at work, were they at a mall. we will not -- i can't even understand why in terms of our congress, our legislation, in terms of how we handle these things, we will not make one move to figure out who these shooters are going to be in advance of this. if this were terrorism cases that happened by international terrorists on a routine basis like this, we would be turning over the entire planet to try and hunt people down. butt but every one of these shootings that go by, we wash it down. i don't know what it would take to change this narrative. we've had more shootings than i can count. it has changed nothing. the needle has not moved in this country. >> it is a depressing point but a true one. if new town can happen and nothing changes, if parkland happens and nothing is chalg, if they're hunting our babies and nothing changes, then what makes something change? >> you know, it's incredibly hard to watch shootings with school children and think why we're still having these problems so many years after newtown. but earlier this week, the southern poverty law center which tracks home grown extremists, said there were figures on the right who were calling on attacks of the press, for shootings and killings in the press. we don't know, it could be domestic or mental illness. as you point out, nicolle, in this charged climate we live in, we have to consider that risk to the press and whether people are killed or not, all of the folks that we're seeing evacuated from the mall are undergoing a kind of terror that they will carry around for the rest of their lives. >> in a trauma, tom winter, are you learning anything from law enforcement sources about the status of the suspect? lieutenant frazier wasn't able to confirm for us which he came on the air and reported, that he had been apprehended and in custody. are you still hearing the shooter is in custody? >> at this point there is no indication that there is anybody else that they are looking for. oftentimes when these shootings happen, of course, we hear that -- excuse me -- they may be looking for a second shooter, third shooter. oftentimes those reports don't turn out to be true. we had commissioner bratton on. the commissioner remade the way the u.s. law enforcement agencies respond to active shooter trainings. he has the force he put into play and the n.y.p.d. continues to fine tune as far as people to be able to deploy with significant weapons in a serious amount of training to be able to respond to they'd type of incidents. they're going to be posted at major media outlets as we have reported. so i think law enforcement now, there is generally an accepted practice of when you respond to an active shooter as dangerous as it can be to the officer arriving, you need to go in and you need to engage that suspect. that's what the n.y.p.d. is trained -- i've been on the training missions with them so to speak so they're trained to go in there and go after the person. it's not surprising to me there was pretty quick apprehension in this case of somebody they believe is responsible for it. i'm sitting in new york and the shooting is happening in annapolis. we're getting briefings as best we can, as best as information comes out. of course as i said to you when we started the show it's preliminary information. we're kind of picking through it as best we get it at this point. >> clint, we saw in silicon valley with the workplace shooting that was, as joyce said, i think a domestic situation, other instances we referenced in paris was political. what is the law enforcement sort of protocol? are they looking at this suspect's digital footprint? re they looking to see if he was somebody who retweelted or reposted anti-media? are they looking for political moat ifrmz? what is law enforcement going through right now? >> you started a reverse time line essentially. it begins with communications and early warnings. did this person set off any early warnings to other people that might be aware of it. and you're always looking to see was this part of a network? was he supported in any way by anyone else, was he part of a movement, ideology, or some other loose network. one of the fears with this, which tom just talked about is the contagion effect. oftentimes we see with these media outbursts with shootings and things like this, someone might be on the fence or thinking about conducting a plot and you want to buckle down all around and make sure you are restoring confidence with the public. i think when we look back in this time line, they'll want to know did the shooter know anyone that was actually in this building or was this a target that the shooter picked based on some sort of circumstance with the organization, that media outlet, and doesn't have any pers personal connection to it. those will be the keys they'll try to figure out. >> tom costello, i understand you have new reporting about the victims. >> you asked a moment ago do we know nick about othanything abo victims being taken somewhere. anne arundel hospital is a block or tua way. it has two victims and it is on lockdown until police finish sweeping the area. anne arundel county medical center says it has two victims as well and we know about one that was treated or is being treated, i should say, at baltimore's shock trauma medical center. that's not a full accounting. they easily could have transported to other hospitals and we continue to work that. but by that count, that would give us three injured, although we have an he can totally got reports of more than that who have been injured. >> thank you, tom. our colleague garrett haake who was on capitol hill covering explosive hearings in the house judiciary committee has arrived on the scene, is now covering the latest mass shooting in america. garrett, what do you know? >> reporter: nicolle, not a lot i can add to tom's reporting except to describe from the ground what you've seen in the air, the massive footprint of the response here. every law enforcement agency from multiple counties is here on the ground. this all happened just behind where our camera is is where the mall is. and the entire parking lot is backed up with police cruisers from anne arundel county, prince george's county. these are people who worry about your fishing licenses typically, are all out here respondling to the shooting. we have some news they expect the area will be cleared enough that they can shrink this footprint a little bit sometime in the next 15 minutes or so. it will allow us to get a little closer and hopefully get a few more answers. we expect to get a briefing from the anne arundel county police on what they know definitively at this point. really maybe as quickly as 5 or 10 minutes from now if they can move that fast. but again, they are trying to finish the process of clearing out this area and shrinking the footprint a little bit as i think they are turning the page to that more investigative phase. >> garrett, we're grateful to have you join us and we'll watch that briefing with you in a few minutes. joyce vance, what can you say about the seamlessness with which the state, local and federal response seems to function now? >> it is exactly what we've been talking about all along. you know, 20 years ago these were difficult sort of processes to put together where everyone had to show up and sort it out. now state, federal and local investigators and prosecute erdos are so used to working together on these kind of incidents that they come together with protocols. here anne arundel is taking the lead. perhaps that might change. but fbi and atf will be there in support positions and prosecutors will try to put together, as clint says, a reverse time line to determine what the shooter's motive was and whether there are others who will carry out further bad acts. >> that is a process that starts immediately, particularly if the shooter is still able to talk and communicate. we have no information that he's not cooperating, is that right? >> i think the first thing they do once they identify who the person is, social media has become so critical in the past few years. you go and look immediately was this person communicating or setting off significant snalz? what was the motivation? is there any ideology? if you can't surface that, the search warrant is always critical in this case. one thing that's sort of curious about this, if he was taken into custody, he's taken alive, that's very different. it tells you a lot about it. when we see many of these plas shootings it's shoot to the death. extremist, it's the suicide pact to go into these places and fight to death. we're not seeing that. this person is taken into custody. i think we'll learn a lot and that helps investigators run things down much quicker. >> let's see if we can learn anything from our next guest joining us, maryland senator chris van hollen. senator, thank you for being on the phone with us. we're sorry for the tragedy that's taken place in your state. what can you tell us? >> well, we've been reaching out to law enforcement. and as you have been reporting, they are still in the process of collecting information and understandably cautious about not releasing anything until they are absolutely certain about what happened in this terrible situation. a lot of the information we've gotten is from the court reporter phil davis who has been tweeting. i know phil davis. he's the crime reporter at the capital gazette. he's a very good reporter and reliable reporter. i've been to this building. it's on the first floor of an office building. the set-up is sort of the open bull pen. you have in news offices. clearly it can be vulnerable if somebody is shooting, whether from inside or outside. but with respect to the details, we're reaching out, of course, to law enforcement and most of all hoping we can get some information to the families of the people who are in that building so that they can find out what's happened to their loved ones. >> let me follow-up with two questions. we have a picture up right now. governor hogan has arrived on the scene and we assume he's getting briefed by the same law enforcement officials you're in contact with. i also want to read -- you mentioned phil davis. he's a crime reporter, and he tweeted, a sing 8 shooter shot multiple people in my office, some of whom are dead. do you have any confirmation of that? have you heard that yourself? we've heard mixed reports here, so wondering if you are able to confirm what phil is reporting. >> i have not. that's really what we're in touch with law enforcement to see if they can give us any, you know, good solid reporting on that. and i think until they are absolutely certain about their facts, they are not going to be reporting that. we'll be getting regular updates from them as we go. but so far it's been primarily the social media, the tweeting information from phil davis. phil davis did tweet out that the editor of the capital gazette, rick hudsel, was okay. or another reporter, i think it was part of the gazette, they sent out some information saying rick hudsel, the editor, was okay. somebody else we met with and dealt with over time. but again, the information is very fragmented at this point in time and we will be happy to update you as we learn more about this awful situation. >> senator, tell us -- i mean, this is a paper, it sounds like a paper you're very familiar with, maybe a newsroom you've been in. tell us what the capital gazette is like. is it a scrappy newspaper, like the local newspaper that we all have in our hometowns? what is that newspaper known for? what are those reporters -- this is obviously a reporter you're familiar with, crime reporter. tell us a little bit about the capital gazette that you know that those of us who don't live in your state or read the paper might not know. >> yeah, this is a great local newspaper and they've got, you know, enterprising young reporters and older reporters. they've got veterans and new folks on the beat. phil davis has been there probably i think three or four years at this point in time. it's a really important voice for anne arundel county and the annapolis, maryland community. they are one of these papers that you rely on to really cover the local news, right, what's happening in the community, what's happening at the local high school. they've got a strong editorial board and, you know, people rely on that editorial board for, you know, good -- both a combination of reporting but also informed opinion writing. so, it is, it is your quintessential sort of american, local, town, city newspaper. they really play an i underst d indispensable role. who motivated the attack, that's something we'll have to find out going forward. all i can say is the capital gazette is a local institution and really vital for informing the community. >> and it's important -- my last question. most people in this country still get their news from the local newspaper. no offense to the national news pap erpz. we love them as much as anyone. but you make a good point about how central they are to a community. i wonder if you can react to something all of our law enforcement experts noticed today, that's the charged anti-media climate in which we are all doing our jobs. >> you're right. well, look, we are living in a very polarized environment. there have been lots of attacks on the media. we see it on social media. we see it out and about in the community. you're all facing it every day and so i do think it's important that we remember the important role that newspapers play, both local newspapers, national newspapers and other media, tv, cable, in trying to bring the public the facts and basic information. that's what the capital gazette does. and they're a forum for people who want to write letters to the editor from different viewpoints and it really is essential that we emphasize that we should, you know, we're always going to have healthy disagreements and discussions, but it's really important that they not rise to the level of violence. and again, i have no idea what motivated this attack. let's just wait and see what the information is. but as a general rule, it's important that we all have a healthy debate, but we do it in a civil way. >> maryland senator, thank you for spending some time with us. we are waiting for this briefing to get underway. we see maryland governor hogan is on the scene and law enforcement officials. we'll listen in as soon as they get started. joyce, can you add anything to the senator's comments just the role local newspapers play? as he said and tom winter said and tom costello said, we do not know anything yet about the motive of the shooter, but it is -- it does seem like a new battle field, a local newspaper, newsroom. not the first time there's been a shooting obviously. there's been violence, but the more we learn, it will certainly be i think of interest to anyone functioning in this political environment if anyone overlaps -- here's the briefing. we'll ask on the other side. >> an ongoing investigation. we are still trying to make sure everyone is safe, reunite people with their families. once the building is secure, we have a crime scene obviously. we anticipate this being a long investigation, a detailed investigation by detectives. i'd like to introduce first our county executive, interim county executive stev executive steve schuh to answer questions. we still have a lot of work to do. thank you. mr. schuh. >> i'm county executive officer steve schuh. we've had a terrible incident this afternoon. there are several people who have died from this incident and several others are injured. those who are injured have been transported for medical care to anne arundel medical center and shock trauma. those fatalities are so sad and i don't know what to say other than our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families. we take comfort knowing they are in god's embrace. the shooter is in custody and being interrogated at this time. i want to commend the public safety professionals who were very quick to the scene here within about 60 seconds, and we've had a tremendous response not only from anne arundel county police and fire, annapolis city police and fire, but also state police, howard county, prince george's, several federal agencies including fbi and atf. i want to thank all of those agencies for their quick response and being our partners in this very unfortunate incident. i'd like to ask governor hogan to say a few words. governor? >> thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. i want to thank the law enforcement professionals who responded, our emergency response team. they did an incredible job. they're still doing the job now. the fact they responded in 60 seconds, i want to give serious praise to anne arundel county and the city of annapolis for their response. and we were here with the state agencies to back them up. we have federal agencies. it's a tragic situation. we can't -- we don't have all the information yet and we can't give all the information yet because it's an active crime scene and investigation. but we have had several fatalities and several people that are in the hospital. we'll just leave it to the professionals to continue with their ongoing investigation. >> lieutenant, i know you said it's early. can you tell us the number of fatalities in any way? is it more than two or under -- can you tell us at least any kind of numbers that you know now? >> i'm going to take this opportunity to introduce our acting chief bill cr anf. he's answer some questions, but please, it will be very brief. you know, we want to make sure the information we put out is accurate, so there's a lot of people involved. we want to make sure the information is accurate. we don't want to say anything that will ruin the investigation. so, the suspect is still being interviewed by detectives, but again, i'll introduce our acting chief william cr dts anst. >> you can see this is a fluid scene. we have allied agencies assisting with anne arundel county police. the investigation has just started, so as ryan has said, we're going to be quite a while determining what occurred, why it occurred, and how it occurred. but as the governor mentioned, we were here quickly. we came into the building very quickly. we received a call as an active shooter. we do have fatalities and we do have serious injuries. we also have many, many witnesses that are being interviewed and we have an area over by lord & taylor that the witnesses can reunite with their families. we are asking them to contact their families so that they can come and assist them with getting home safely. as ryan mentioned before, our criminal investigation division has one person in custody. that person is at our criminal investigation division down in crownsville and we will be speaking with that individual quite frequently -- well, shortly, i should say, and get the information. the building is secure from a tactical standpoint. that means that right now we believe that there are no other shooters in the building. but it is not -- it has not been clear from an investigative standpoint. so once the qrt and the members of the s.w.a.t. team leave the building, the investigators will go in and then we will start to process of putting a new investigation together. >> chief -- >> right now we can't confirm exactly where the shooting occurred throughout that building. the capital gazette building is inside that building along with many other -- >> do you have any numbers on casualties? >> not at this point, not at this time. >> -- >> our officers were on the scene very, very quickly. i think it was around 60 seconds, minute, minute and a half. and they did engage the suspect and that's when he was taken into custody. it occurred quickly. one second. that was again, just for everybody, that was our acting chief kramph. i'd like to introduce the mayor of annapolis, mayor gavin buckley. >> how are you doing. so, the city sends its love and thoughts for all the families that have been affected by this horrible event. i want to commend our first responders for getting onto the scene as quickly as they did. and if they were not there as quickly as they did, it could have been a lot worse. so i just have to say it was a great joint effort by everybody. this is what we train for. a week ago we practiced an active shooter training. a thing we did not expect something like this to happen in our community, but we were ready and i don't think we could have put any more resources if you look behind you what's been done here, tremendous response. >> mayor, how many people have been killed? >> we can't confirm that yet. i'll have to leave that with the county on this. so i'll hand it back to you. >> we're concerned, you can't give us a number how many people were killed or injured because you don't know? what's going on? >> at this point we're still reuniting people with families and we're interviewing this suspect. we don't want to put that information out right now. that information will come out very shortly. >> there was a lone suspect, you're not looking for anyone else? >> at this point he's the only suspect. we have one suspect. and i'd like to introduce our -- the anne arundel county states attorney, mr. russ adams. >> good afternoon, everybody. my office is on scene to assist with the fantastic response by our law enforcement officials. as everybody knows, this is an active investigation. we will work with -- in conjunction with the detectives and the police officers who are handling the scene to make sure we have everything collected correctly and sift through and process it as necessary. that is the only comment my office can make at this time. we are assisting all other law enforcement agencies. >> you guys have any motive, any type of motive right now? >> the investigation is still active and ongoing, so my office in particular cannot comment in any way on the nature -- evidence. >> what type of weapon was used? >> turn it back over to lieutenant frazier. >> at this point, we can't identify the exact weapon that was used. we anticipate having another briefing very shortly to try to get that information out. so at this point with it being a very active investigation, we need to reconnect with our detectives interviewing the suspect, make sure we have the accurate nfgts we can give out to anybody. so we anticipate another up date shortly. >> -- >> at this point we're still talking to the individual. we're engaging the individual and we're trying to find out a motive. all those things come along with these investigations. it takes a long time, takes a long time. >> governor hogan, so very long ago we gathered similarly in southern maryland. this happened again, a shooting like this. what are your thoughts? what's in your heart this afternoon as the leader of our state to be dealing with this? >> you know, the first thing, your heart goes out to the people that lost their lives and all the families and the other people that are affected here. it's a tragic situation. they're two entirely different situations, but in both cases, in southern maryland we had a resource officer that acted immediately and saved lives. here in 60 seconds we had a police response. while both situation s are tragic, our response to it has been incredible. i want to praise the local officials who responded so well and perhaps saved other people's lives by getting there while the thing was taking place and apprehending the suspect. he's in custody. i know it's frustrating because it's not that they don't have information. they just can't share the information. i think we know about the number of fatalities. they know the weapon, but with the thing actively going on, it can hinder the investigation releasing information too soon. when they have the next briefing perhaps they can provide more information. >> governor hogan -- >> no, i don't think it has anything -- >> i don't have that information and i don't have that information, but that will be two things that i'll check on and make sure we have that for the next briefing. >> --. >> we're still trying to determine the suspect. i'm sorry? >> -- >> that will be more information that i give out in our next briefing. >> -- >> i'm sorry? i cannot confirm what type of weapon was used in the shooting. again, we have several questions we know we need enters for the next briefing so we anticipate having another briefing in the hour and we'll make sure we have it there. this is all the information we have. appreciate your confidence. >> this is the last bit of information until the next briefing. i anticipate another briefing very, very shortly, but there are five fatalities that we know of. there are several other persons that are gravely injured. we will have more information for you in the next briefing. thank you. >>, guys. we'll be with you shortly. >> okay. so, the headline there, tragic one, five dead, others who are gravely injured. the shooter being interrogated as tom winter and tom costello both have been reporting. it seemed like as the briefing went on, the number became more firm. did you have the sense that that was known when they started briefing? i think that was our own garrett haake trying to pin him down on the number of casualties and it wasn't until the final seconds of that briefing where he confirmed there were five dead and others gravely injured. >> that's right. my understanding coming into the briefing, nicolle, was there were at least four dead and that five people had been taken to the hospital with serious injuries. i know tom costello has been reporting as far as which medical centers and how many people went to those medical centers. in addition, i did hear police talking about a medical flight that was -- that was -- took off from there. that's somebody who is really in terrible shape. if you're being put onto a helicopter to be taken to a medical facility, you're in rough shape. that's my understanding of it. a little bit of new information that we have, we talked about a person in custody before the press conference. obviously the acting police chief confirming that. it's our understanding from multiple senior law enforcement officials that as soon as, as soon as the suspect was encountered by first responders, the suspect surrendered immediately at that point. in addition, he has some sort of a package or some sort of, maybe a back pack police are looking at with the help of bomb squad. i don't want to get anybody too alarmed by that, because that's something we see now more and more whenever somebody may have a back pack on them, that could be more ammunition, there could be some sort of device in there they want to check out. there could be additional phones or wires, just something they think is suspicious and they want to get a second look at. they have the tools and training to be able to do that. that will take some time. the acting police chief alluded to that. they are still clearing that scene and still getting a handle on it. the people that collect the evidence will have a lot of work to do. in addition to that we heard from the briefing the first responders were there in 90 seconds. that's a very, very good response time. and in that they engaged with the suspect seemingly right away based on what they're telling us. that's textbook. that's what they needed to do and that may have saved some lives and people being injured today from this shooter. in addition to that, just going back to -- refer to some of the physical description of the suspect. he's a white male, may be on the younger side, 20 is a little bit fluid. i don't want to get into some of the specifics at this time. at this point they are going to want to engage and speak with this suspect. we are going to try to get an identity on them, if they even have an identity on the suspect. they want to know if this is somebody they have contacted before. in other words, this have they been called out to engage with this suspect before like we saw with the parkland shooting. is this person known to them, does he have any associates that they know. what known associates does he have, if any. that may be an investigative avenue for them to pursue. in addition to that, they are going to want to, as clint said earlier, execute a search warrant on this person's residence to see if there are any other weapons or any other devices that they need to look at. if there is anything that can help guide them on motive, which remains a major question and a very important one at this time. i will recap by saying as we mentioned before, the n.y.p.d. is sending additional officers to various media sites around the city as well out of an abundance of caution. >> tom costello, you did some of the briefing. the briefing was to confirm some of the tragic information you have already brought us about the victims. what did you learn in the briefing that sort of confirmed some of the stories that you first brought us? >> the headline at 4:50 is we have five confirmed fatalities on the ground in annapolis maryland. we don't know how many are injured, threer four, probably more. five confirmed fatalities at this newsroom in the capital of maryland. the question is going to be, in addition to everybody that tom winter so expertly laid out z this individual have some sort of a motivation? was he in any way trying to hit on a grievance that he had with that newspaper? did he have some sort of inspiration from out there, the vile rhetoric on social media these days calling on individuals to kill, to target report irs. what is that a part of it? we simply don't know. as for the police response, you talk about a 90 second pops for annapolis. it is a small town, a beautiful town, but it is the cap tafl maryland so you have got not only the city police, you have got the sheriff. you have got the state police. this is all part of the greater washington, d.c. capital original. when subpoena hits the red alert button in this area, the police response, all over, from northern virginia up to baltimore is fast and furious, like probably few other cities in the country, other than maybe new york and boston. i mean, the immediate expedited rush of law enforcement from across the region, regardless of state lice, boundaries, federal lines, it doesn't matter of it is an urgent rush with everybody and all hand on deck. what i found not being a native marylander, but living here 13 years every time you turn the corner there is another police agency, another police car with different markings. there is a very heavy police presence throughout this entire area. now the problem, now the challenge is to deconstruct what this individual's motives were. was it mental illness? was it a personal grievance? was he inspired by some non-sense on line. we live in an era of non-sense on line of it's going to be difficult to decipher that. lastly, in point of personal privilege, you mentioned this is almost every day in america a. thursday in america. and i will tell you, having teenagers in high school just a couple of years ago, you know, my kids were often very worried about the possibility of a mass shooting in their school. and they are not alone. schools across the country. workplaces across the country. this is a reality that we live with now ifr day in 2018. back to you. >> tom koss your reporting has been remarkable. your humanity on a day like today even more so. thank you for spending so much of the hour with us. tom mentioned throughout the day, since the minutes after this occurred the duality -- that we don't know the motive, but, and we live in a climate where journalists are constantly on the receiving end of vitriol, of as he just reported death threats. >> there is already social media cheering in certain parts of the country right now about these deaths these kinds of shootings. >> really. >>? >> it's surfacing on some of the anonymous chat forums. we don't know what is true or what is amplification of these threats. we are at a time when there is a huge divide in this country and the media has been caught in the middle of it. people yell when they don't hear news that they look. elected official calling fake news. you have seen the pushback between elected officials on both sides in the past week. it may be no surprise that this target was picked not because of a personal motive. it seams like we have got a pattern in this country where people are hyper charged. they have easy access to weapons, and they are mobilizing and moving on targets in a very dangerous way. a school one day, the workplace another. you really don't know where it's going to be. your greatest fear in this country is what other american will actually shoot you. >> god,reminder. we do not know, as you have all reminded me during the hour, the investigation begins right now. it's at its earliest stages. we do not have any confirmation that the fact that the mass shooting today that took the lives of five people who i'm guessing just woke up and went to work, said bye honey, bye to their kids, bye to their spouses and went to the office thinking they would be home. they will now not be home. they will never be home again. and while we don't know the motive, they simply went to work, we believe, at this newsroom or in the newsroom or somewhere in that building to do their jobs. and five people won't come home today. >> this is the part of these killings that is so impossible to process, this idea that someone can come in, whether it is for a personal motive. for an etiology, and take away the lives of others. and i think all too often we move past that human part of these tragedieies with speed inn evident to find out the body count and the meev and what law enforcement is doing about it. at the bottom it's so important to remember the real people and the lives that are components of this tragedy and not to lose track of that. garrett headache is at the scene. you have new information? >> i just wanted to draw attention back to one thing from the briefing i think almost got buried. about the extraordinary unfortunate ordinariness of all of this. the mayor of annapolis said his officers went through active shooter training last week and they were able to interrupt the suspect while this was going on and that's something that might have saved lives. a week ago going through the training not anything they were going to have to use this. it reminded me just a monday ago being in southern maryland talking about the school shooting a few months ago where they talked about a similar thing, the school having done active shooter drills, the resource officer being prepared for this eventuality. we talk about these things as tragedies as every single time they are. but this is so increasingly ordinary that it's just become part of the daily practice for all of these first responders, emts and the like who respond to them over and over and over and over again in our communities. >> garrett, it remind me of a town or a community dealing with arson. they say we are getting really good at putting out fires. shouldn't we try to catch the arsonist. do they ever talk about guns? >> they do for three days. parkland was extraordinary because it changed the conversation for a few weeks. now, all those gun control bills that seemed to be getting a left attention after that seems to have disappeared. congress has decided it's not worth it to keep fighting these fights. how to you continue to raise the moral outrage meter. if it was okay enough after newtown not to pass something how does four or five adults getting shot change your calculus? it's horrible to say out loud. the bar is set so high. and after newtown and parkland, it's not high enough. >> it used to be the political voices who would make the argument for gun control. now it is law enforcement saying no more. people like commissioner brad, people like yourself, people who know these issues and know while the climate is something we can't do anything about, the guns we can. >> the person raters have more capacity, more fire power than law enforcement in some of the cases. you are talking about a school resource officer armed with a pistol running at somebody who carried the same thing i carried as a u.s. army officer and went through extensive training. we weren't carrying bullets with the weapon because we were learning how to handle it. you are expecting officers to close a threat that a lot of times has them outgunned. how can we expect any of this to get better when we have put no gun control laws into place or dealt with the people doing this in most cases. >> our breaking news continues now with ali velshi who was the first person to cover this story for our network. you are in very good hands. >> not an accolade anybody wants. thanks for your great coverage. good evening i'm ali velshi in new york. we are covering breaking news in annapolis maryland where there are at least five confirmed fatalities and several others are "grizzlies live" lee injured of a a gunman opened fire at the "capital gazette" newspaper. the shooter is alive, currently being interviewed by police. multiple sources tell nbc news the suspect is believed to be a white male who was armed with a shotgun. police wouldn't comment on a positive motive although they noted they are actively

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