Have they been able to give you more information about the shooter or his motivations . Listen, he lives two hours away from orlando. He drove two hours to go to a gay nightclub and kill people. That speaks for itself. You believe this club was targeted because its a gay nightclub. Seems very likely to me. Congressman, thank you very much for your time. Well come back. For now, for everyone just joining us, a little after 11 00 here on the east coast. Weve been covering this deadly shooting, the worst mass shooting in American History that unfolded overnight in orlando, florida, at the pulse nightclub. Shortly after 2 00 a. M. , the gunman entered that nightclub and began shooting. We heard from eyewitnesss, you can see it there, took hostages for the next three hours, three Hours Later Police s. W. A. T. Teams went in to end the situation. When it was 53 injured. I want to bring in pierre thomas, our senior justice correspondent. Pierre, lets go through what we know about the shooter and how this unfolded overnight. Omar mateen, 29 years old. 29 years old. Parents from afghanistan. Law enforcement officials said there were initial indications of jihadist leanings, but they emphasize its early in the investigation. Theyre looking at the possibility that this could be a hate crime. Law enforcement officials looking at his background. Im told every Law Enforcement agency and every Intelligence Agency is being asked to check its data files, find out if they have information about this suspect. Top Law Enforcement officials in the country from the attorney general to the fbi director, Homeland Security secretary, being briefed about this this morning. They want to get a handle on this. The level of the death, they know the Mass Shootings are happening on a regular basis. They want to get as information as they can on this one to put it into perspective to see why this keeps happening. The numbers here so devastating. Based on the information they have so far, you say theyre running through everything right now, based on the information they have right now, they believe he was acting alone. That was the big concern of Homeland Security officials over the last year or so the selfradicalization of individuals who take matters into their own hands. Absolutely. They will look to see if he had ties to anyone and was anything else imminent. So far no indication that he had direct support of someone helping him. Law enforcement officials deeply concerned about lone wolves, radicalized through social media, particularly through isis. The fbi director calls them troubled souls, people who didnt ever go to syria or iraq but who have been consuming digi encouraging them to act. Thats the concern. We dont know yet if thats definitely what happened here, but thats being aggressively investigated. Pierre thomas, thank you very much. I want to bring in former fbi special agent brad garrett right now. Were learning more from the eyewitnesss, you got the sense that the gunman came in, strong burst of sustained gunfire for several minutes around 2 00 a. M. Takes the hostages and holds them for about three hours. Its hard to know which killing happened when. Exactly. My sense would be because Law Enforcement was on the scene in fairly short order. There was an offduty officer there that engaged the shooter at some point, Law Enforcement if they continued to hear shots would have gone in long before 5 00. Its a bit of a mystery, based on all these Mass Shootings weve tke years as to why he stopped and waited for three hours before this ultimately ended in his death. So, theres a lot to be filled in here. But, you know, were still not also with any clarity to what motivated him. Is this a mixture of radical islamic isis thinking, antigay thinking. The two go hand in hand with isis with the brutality that isis has demonstrated against gay individuals in syria and in iraq. You know, whats going on here, i dont know. I think it will not take long to get to the bottom of it. It wont take long. We know the police decided to go in with that bearcat, that armored truck around 5 00 a. M. That they were learning more from eyewitnesss coming out and getting Text Messages from inside. Correct. By that with micro cameras were probably inside watching whats going on. They had a sense of whos moving where, where possibly is the shooter. Are there other active rounds going on at this point. I assume the answer was no. Once they had that intel and believed there was no explosives they were about to walk into, it was time to go in and clear. Which is ultimately what they did around 5 00 a. M. But we have no indication now that they had direct contact with the shooter, at least we have not heard ofany yet that they had contact with the shooter or communication with the shooter. Correct. Perhaps they tried. Typically, george, at hostage barricade situations where you already have demonstrated violence, we clearly try to reach out through bullhorns, through probably because they didnt know who he was, they couldnt reach out on a cell phone, try to get him to communicate. Obviously this is a guy, im going to presume who didnt go there to communicate. He went there to kill a lot of people which unfortat and you have this period that we just discussed about these three hours about what was going on. You know, this is really about him, i guess, fulfilling what was going on in his head. Whatever drove him to do this. Unfortunately he was deadly successful today. Echos in this attack of what happened in paris, the bataclan concert center, the initial shooting, a pause, and s. W. A. T. Teams go in. Is it in the Training Group to do this, to kill and maim as many as you can and then stand by and wait for Law Enforcement to do their thing . Maybe. If youre going to commit an act like this or the acts weve talked about in brussels and paris, the whole key here is going to be im going to die. I will either make Law Enforcement kill me or have some death of making a statement about what ive just accomplished. Is there some of that going on . My guess is yes. One thing that seems different so far again, we could learn more as we hear from eyewitnesss inside apparently nobody heard the gunman make any declarations, did not speak. Any kind of communication from the gunman. That also may be that if this is sort of an isis sort of motivated event, that they have learned that announcing in advance gives them a disadvantage because people may start to scatter. My guess is that this is a blind shot. Youre going into a club, a lot of people drinking, et cetera. Music probably loud. The ability to go in and open up and just these numbers, george, 50 plus people dead. It gives you an idea how many people you can kill in probably a few minutes because you no resistance. Nadal hassan would have killed more people, but fortunately Law Enforcement was there and shot him. This guy didnt have any resistance. Thats why we have such big numbers. Though there was a Police Officer on the scene and some shots initially before he went in. Well, yes. But this is whats unclear. Was that did that occur before he did the majority of shooting or did he come back out and go back in . Thats for me, thats a point thats not clear yet. Okay. Theres a lot more well have to learn about that, brad. Thank you very much. I want to bring in ray kelly, former new York City Police commissioner, hes on the phone with us right now. I talked to peter king about this, mr. Commissioner a little bit. Talk through the kind of precautions that well see now in new york and other major cities across the country. I think youll see significant uniformed deployment at targets of concern, targets. Some locations where Lgbt Community might gather will be of particular concern. Thats important for Police Departments at the least to raise a comfort level, as much as they possibly can. This, to me, looks like a classic lone wolf operation. If you remember in september of 2014, muhammad al dini, Communications Director for isis, urged people to go out and do whatever they can do. This is when we started the Bombing Campaign against isis. Weve seen a series of events not only in this country but many other countries in response to that urging. You know, we dont know an awful lot about this event. It certainly could be just that. Whats scary is the simplicity of it. This i one rifle, one handgun, was able to kill apparently at least 50 people. Its very much of a concern. Its a concern to Law Enforcement, of course throughout the country. Just stunning. Ray kelly, stand by as well. I want to go back to orlando. Christine is joining us from orlando. Christine, i understand your son was in the Club Last Night . Yes, he was. Have you heard anything . I havent heard anything. Ive been here since 4 00 in the morning. Ive been waiting. Im waiting by the emergency room. See if anybody gets called in. What is your sons full name . My son is christopher linonen. Christopher linonen. What have police been alto tell you . Of dead bodies in the club. That its a crime scene. They cant identify anybody so it could be hours and hours before we find out. The hospital said that there are some bodies at the hospital that came in and they died. And theyre not identifiable yet either. And then there are a few in Critical Condition that are not identified yet. Christine, im so sorry. Were you able to have any kind of communication with your son last night at all . Any Text Messages . Phone calls . No, i called him last night at 6 00. I was just giving him some information that he was going to need to know for my upcoming surgery. And i left him with i love you, chris. And then i just happened to wake up at 3 00 and i was checking my facebook. I saw one of christophers friends, brandon, had posted on facebook that there was a shooting at the pulse. And he doesnt know where his friends were. So i texted him. I called him. I came right here to the hospital. Weve been waiting since 4 00 this morning. His friend brandon was in the club at shooting. Christine, were praying for you. He told me that go ahead. He told me he just happened to be in the bathroom, he heard multiple gunshots. He was able to run out the front door. While he was standing by the club door and the ambulances were coming in, he saw that my sons boyfriend had multiple gunshots and was being taken by the ambulance. But he never saw christopher come out. We havent been able to call him or text him. Well do everything we can to help find him as well, christine. Were praying with you. We feel so badly. Our hearts go out to you. Thank you for sharing what you i just wanted to say that this is a club that nobody wants to be in and please, can we do something with the assault weapons so that we can stop this club from ever getting any new member members. Please. I wanted to let you know about my son when he was in high school, he started the gay straight alliance. And he won the anna frank humanitarian award to bring gays and straights together. Ive been so proud of him for that thing. Please lets all just get along. Were all on this earth for such a short time. Lets try to get rid of the hatred and the violence. Plea please. Christine, your words are so powerful. Its so clear your heart is breaking. Were thinking of you. Were with you. Know that your words have been heard. Thank you very much. Thank you. A remarkable young man. Lets move back now. I want to go to brad garrett. We just heard those words from the mom who was dealing with this. No word from her son. Its so hard to sort through these scenes after the fact. And the problem, george, sadly so, as time goes on, and one dark place. Im sure thats what shes feeling. I sensed it in her voice. You know, that you got 50 plus people that have not been identified, maybe some have at this point. It is, i will tell you for Emergency Services and local Law Enforcement, its one of the worst things but necessary to do. Which is to go through the mass casualties, look at these h horribly maimed bodies and figure out identities of people so they can then go to relatives, to aunts, uncles, to loved ones and give them the facts. When you have this many its one thing to have four, five, six that we typically talk about at a school shooting. Now you have 50 plus this will take, i think, most of today to probably sort that out. Brad garrett, thank you. Im here with dr. Jen ashton, all the hospitals train for this but you cant really be prepared for this kind of devastation. Absolutely. I want to take everyone back to the scene. You have to understand and appreciate from the perspective of the ems system and the First Responders the primary principle guiding them as they arrive on this scene, is the scene safe . And they cannot actually go on to that scene unless it is secured because they dont want to add to the number of victims and casualties there. Its also very important for people to understand in a hospital setting we have every possible instrument at our disposal. We have a sterile, organized scenario and situation even in a mass casualty trauma like this. Those paramedics and emts who responded to that scene and likely did save a lot of lives had none of those things at their disposal. For them to do the work they did, in some cases in what we call load and immediately to the hospital, in other cases, stabilize them, stable intravenous access and airway, thats incredibly difficult. We heard from the eyewitness earlier, these wounds significant. The ammunition, very heavy am natio ammunition, severing off arms. This is information and experience that weve gotten from military war casualties. When those patients arrive at the door of a Level One Trauma Center like orlando Regional Medical center, its the only Level One Trauma Center in central florida, one of six in the state, theyre prepared to get a patient from the door to the o. R. Table in minutes. People talk about surgeons and nurses here. Make no mistake, every person at that Medical Center is called in in what is called a disaster code or mass casualty code. We are trained for this. They are all doing an job. Those o. R. S need to be cleaned promptly, housekeeping, blood Bank Resources mobilized, and we cannot forget the skill and role of Mental Health professionals here. Weve seen with some of the eyewitnesss and First Responders significant emotional wounds, not just physical wounds in a case like this. I want to go back to brian ross right now. I know youve been working your sources since this went on. So far no claims of responsibility from an overseas group. Thats right. No claims at all. The u. S. Scouring the normal sites looking for claims or communications from the person identified as the shooter or an overseas group. They know isis has been kochb conducting a war on their propaganda and material. They have regularly stoned gays found in iraq and syria, thrown them off rooftops, they say that is a legal action because of the sins they say the gays committed under sharia law. The scene there, so much c n carnage in such a short period of time. Not much the police could do in those initial minutes. No, george, its not. Its a horrible tragedy when police have to confront a situation like this thats ongoing. Theres been recent moves to train police and emergency medical techniques, so that as they are clearing and securing a location, they can provide emergency care. When you have this many casualties and an unstable situation like this, its difficult to provide that care even if you train for it. You worked in the federal government, counterterroism center as well. That will be done after the fact now. Not only in orlando but across the country. Well, first investigators will want to get the details of what happened here. Was this an individual who was recruited and trained . Was this somebody who became selfradicalized and inspired by what he saw on social media or learned off the internet. You will see an increase in security at soft targets. As brian was saying, isis has in their propaganda called for attacks on the homosexual community, called for attacks on nightclubs, restaurants and hotels. Weve seen these attacks in other parts of the world and europe. So while the idea of a homegrown attack is not anything new, you will see calls for increased security at these soft targets. Police will be wrestling with that if not immediately but within the days. We are joined as well by commissioner ray kelly. Picking up on that point, commissioner kelly, its impossible to guard every single soft target. I know you had experience in new york of increasing Police Presence in places like times square, but you cant guard every con sooeceivable target. Youre right. Thats why you need to tap all your sources. We need the fbi and cia overseas to continue to do what theyve been doing to get any bit of information that can tip us off or give us an indication where another event may be happening. Its extremely difficult. As we said before, individuals have been motivated to act on their own. It doesnt mean theyre communicating with anyone else. Communication is the key to if theres encryption used or if people are not communicating with other folks, its very, very difficult to do. Even so, i think Law Enforcement has to do what it can do to at least give the feeling of security at locations that are sensitive. I think certainly the Lgbt Community, i think, there are locations in most cities that would require some increased police attention. Now, i think well see that in the shortterm. So if you were on p