this is "nbc nightly news reporting tonight f good evening from a tense and fragile baltimore as we come to you standing across from some of the still-smoldering from a fire that may be related to the violence yest it's still under investigation. bu right now our eyes are once again locked several blocks away in west baltimore. crowds have been growing in the street throughout the afternoon against the backdrop of a large police and national guard presence. as you can imagine, after last night, tensions are high. our team has fanned out across this city. let's get right to nbc's peter alexander to begin our coverage. peter? >> lester, good eve to two atf teams are en route here to help investigate more than 140 cars set on fire 15 buildings burned and the news announced by the police commissioner at least one rioter fired shots at officers last night. all this as the city's mayor vowed to return baltimore to normal. tonight baltimore is a city under lockdown. state and local police teamed up with 1,000 members of the national guard trying to keep an uneasy . hoping to avoid a repeat of last rioting. i thi this can be our defining moment and not the darkest days that we saw yesterday. >> r explosion of ve followed e funeral for 25-year-old freddie gray who died while in police custody. young people many of them teens, gathered on baltimore's west side before throwing rocks and bottles at police then looting a cvs pharmacy and setting it ablaze. angry mobs moved from store to store, stealing property destroying police cars and attacking officers. io t night, chaos intensified. this nearly completed senior center turned into an inferno. today emotions ar >> stop the violence please! >> for more than eight hours overnight the levy family helplessly watched their store surveillance cameras from home as looters gutted the sports mart they've owned for 25 years. they were coming in and just cleaning us out. ts mess is all that's left. want to rebuild, but where do you begin? >> it's just bad. my heart is breaking for baltimore for all the store owners and it's breaking for us. >> reporter: mothe of three, tracy joyce, had worked here for the last five years. she's now out of a job. and i walk in and e this tore apart, this like ripped me to shreds. upsetting. >> rep this g w city sc closed leaving 85,000 kids without class, some took to the streets to help clean up. >> i didn't want all this to look a mess and i want this to look like it never burnt down and i want them to rebuild this the way it was. >> reporter: others to last night's hot spots where they faced off with police once again. no injuries reported but limited arrests. the curfew begins here tonight at 10:00 p.m. and tomorrow the baltimore orioles will return to the field at nearby camden yards after postponing their games yesterday and today but they'll do in a game that's closed to the public. that means no fans in the stands. even major league baseball lester says that's never happened before. >> all right, peter alexander, thanks. on the west side. i'm on the east side of baltimore at the scene of this fire last night. if you were watching any of the coverage you saw it going up in flames lighting the skyline. it's a church senior community center that was under construction. l questions as to whether it was related to the riots that occurred at about that time. so it's still under investigation. atf was here just a short time ago. the question have been how did things get to this point? was this all about freddie gray or something else? the consensus of people i spoke to in this city today say there was a lot more to it that what happened here is rooted decades ago. his cell phone camera rolling as the unruly crowd surges toward a check cashing store, then begins ransacking the place, andre jolly witnessed what he and many others who live in this neighborhood ha seen coming for decades. >> it didn't make but at the same time freddie gray didn't make sense. and until somebody mixed the real problem and they're going to act out like youth act out. and little c explain yesterday's violence. but there is plenty that may inform it. it's a neighborhood where more than 50% of residents are not employed. third of its residential housing emy or abandoned. where in one four-year period a quarter of kids ages 10 to 17 had been arrested. a place where residents are twice as likely to die from homicide than other baltimore residents. and now, adding to the misery of those growing up here this. are you afraid for what's going to happen here? >> yes. what are most afraid of? >> i'm most afraid of everything everything the kids might go into the stores and we might not have a community to live in. >> reporter: kweisi mfume, former congressman and naacp president is from baltimore. pe look at what here last t and they say what on earth does it have to do with freddie gray? >> nothing. violence burning, looting has absolutely nothing to do with the cry for justice, the investigation or to find out what caused his death. >> reporte but tapped in. something's simmering here. it's been simmering, lester for 40 or 50 years really since 1968. >> reporter: african-amer men e vanishing from daily life in places like west baltimore because of premature deaths and soaring incarceration rates. andre jolly is himself a convicted felon and recovering substance abuser. i have an 8-year-old son. i have a 7-year-old son. and what i'm trying to do right now is be in their lives, be a father. d i that's a g part of the problem. lot of the fathers here are either incarcerated or dead. >> reporter: but west baltimore has not given up. father and ex-marine brandon gibson brought his children out today to join others in cleaning up debris in the neighborhood his family came from. >> we can cry and we can have sorrow about all the bad things that are happening and all the things that are going wrong, such as the tensions with the police and the things in the neighborhood but you at the end of the day, you're going to have to take action and you're going to have to do something posi to make that positive change. speaking older people who were here during the riots of the '60s they're appealing to the young people trying to remind them that all this violence only takes away from their community. president obama tod a news conference with japan's prime minister his first public comment about the violence in baltimore, declaring that there is no excuse for the rioting after he was questioned by our senior white house correspondent chris jansing. are we in the throes of a national crisis? what a you prepared to do about it both in terms of baltimore and the larger picture? and what do you say to critics who say that since the death of trayvon martin you have not been aggressive enough in your response? >> when individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot they're not protesting. not making a statement. they stealing. what i say is this has been a slow-rolling crisis. th has been going on for a long time. this is not new. i think there are po departments have to do some soul searching. i think there's some communits that have to do some soul searching, but i think we as a country have to do some soul searching. d we don't just pay attention to these communities when a young man gets shot. or has his spine snapped. >> the prs first tod about viole in baltimore. spent more than 14 minutes answering chris' question on topic. our nbc news political director and moderator of "meet the press" chuck todd is with us tonight. let's talk about leadership. e seen vargss of this story play out over the last year or so. questi of police conduct. does the leadersh move from here? >> well it will be interesting to see if the president does something he's never before. he never walked the streets of ferguson didn't go to sanford, florida, didn't go to north charleston. is baltimore different? he come and walk e streets? does he actually smell the burning ground that we smell and the smoldering? the symbolic bully pulpits been credit ekes that he hasn't done it enough. the new mayor here stephanie rawlings-blake but she's somebody who she made these comments about space to destroy. i th it's put her sort of on her heels a little bit. and it's not clear whether she's going to have the ability to bring this city together. s got a real challenge. som who has been a frequent guest on your program. she has been and a national spokesperson talking about the and body camera snow this is in her backyard. this is a real challenge for her. >> amid all the images of crowds run amok here there's a moment that stood out for many watching this unfold when a young man encountered an authority fiy badge but can really lay down the law. rehema ellis has that part of the story. >> repor police this is one mother's fury unleashed on her son. spotted in the middle of a protest, she forces him back tries to rip off h mask while screaming at him. get over here now! >> reporter: baltimore's police f commended her. >> if you saw in one scene, you had one mother who grabbr chi who had a hood on his head and she started smacking him on the head because she was so embarrassed. wish i had more parents that took of their kids like that tonight. >> rep the video has gone viral. many are calling her a hero. do you think she right or was she wrong? i think she was right. if your son were old enough to be out in the street rioting and you saw him, what would you do? >> the same thing that mother did. go find my son and take him home. his li saved. >> my mother would have done the same thin wow, you know they said go and get their children. bu i mean they didn't say go and cuss them out and beat them up. tonight, a community torn apart, neighbors hold on to each other, praying for answers and a peaceful night. rehema ellis, nbc news baltimore. we want to turn to another major story we're following tonight, the desperate search for survivors of the devastating earthquake in nepal which is now claimed more than 5,000 lives. every minute that passes diminishing the chances of finding people alive in the rubble but rescuers are not ready to give up not yet. miguel almaguer has the story from nepal. >> reporter: a new at the devastating quake. e pictures taken but neighboring nepal remains hardest hit. finding survivors here has become a r. late tonight this 28-year-old pulled alive from the rubble more than 80 hours after the quake. but the desperate search doesn't scenes like this have been happening all day long. anothe body recovered from the rubble. now rushed to the hospital. moments later volunteers are back at work. wh are you here? to help. >> reporter: 62-year-old canadian ross trent has been digging 12 hours a day since the quake struck. >> here i am. in one crazy way i'm probably in a better place now doing something. just across the street people looking for missing relatives watch and wait. in some areas of kathmandu, they've n up hope. beneath this rubble a few days ago they could hear cries for help even tapping, but now they've gone. for survivors today, more hardship. rain and wind hammered tent cities. disease could easily spread here. but hospitals are out of room. no empty beds only the promise of more patients to come. in remote villages helicopters search and find more destruction. on mt. everest, climbers trapped by the avalanche have been airlifted out. the climbing season is over. this rescue team from virginia arriving in kathmandu today to join the search for survivors. this is why they've come a woman rescued, pinned underneath concrete for t there's still hope here but less of it with each passing day. miguel almaguer nbc news kathmandu, nepal. >> we know many of you want to know how to help the victims in nepal and where you can donate. we put all that information on our website. a l more of the day's news still ahead, including a big announcement from the nfl. also same-sex marriage returns to the supreme court. it's a cliff-hanger ca legal in all 50 states. to wha we' le about congratulations. you're down with crestor. yes! when diet and exercise aren't enough, adding crestor lowers bad cholesterol up to 55%. crestor is not for people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. tell your doctor all medicines you take. call your doctor if you have muscle pain or weakness, feel unusually tired have loss of appetite, upper belly pain, dark urine or yellowing of skin or eyes. these could be signs of serious side effects. i'm down with crestor! make your move. ask your doctor about crestor. constipated? 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did you know your brain has two systems? one helps keep you awake- the other helps you sleep. science suggests when you have insomnia, the wake system in your brain may be too strong and your neurotransmitters remain too active as you try to sleep, which could be leading to your insomnia. ohh...maybe that's what's preventing me from getting the sleep i need! talk to your doctor about ways to manage your insomnia. ♪ in wake of last night's violence we of course continue to keep a watch on west baltimore this d before we sign off here a few final thoughts. peoe stopped me the street here today. they pointedly asked where was everybody be all this happened? coming here now asking your questions about police and poverty and life. it isn't lost on here that places like west baltimore are sometimes invisible and not heard. the places that people drive through but don't always see. there's a lot to try and understand here and much to learn, but the concern i also heard expressed is that this community can't be seen or heard through the fog of -- fog and din of violence. we'l have updates throughout the night nbc news.com and on late local news and tomorrow on "today." i'm lester holt reporting from baltimore. all of us at nbc news, thank you mariah carey's new extra kiss and tell from her divorce to dating again. and is her new song about nick? now on "extra." >> mariah's cleopatra-style entrance at caesar's palace. >> talk about a fabulous entrance. >> breaking news to tracey about the new vegas show and relationship with director brett ratter in. >> a fabulous love affair darling. >> would you like to share andear the air? >> yes. new vid joe khloe and bruce jenner today. >> why bruce hired an attack dog attorney. breaking the silence about patrick dempsey's surprise