united states marshals service and the fugitive task force and they are out as we speak looking for the suspect. as i mentioned this is a very large collaborative effort and our goal is to make sure that all of the students here, not to just come out safe but feel safe so we are working toward that as we speak. you should see very shortly a large contingent of students coming out orderly, moving out to the buses and moving to the location already indicated. our recommendation that parents go to that location, that chief colby mentioned, the address, rather than coming to the school. coming to the school here will just make things more difficult so please go to the pickup location. inc. you very much. we won t take any questions but i wanted to reemphasize that this is not a random act of violence. not somebody attacking our schools. this is a student, we believe
these children to make sure that we are safe, to make sure that we get identification for each of the students, to make sure that we hope you have any weapons on them, themselves. so it s just a customary practice that we will do to make sure that everyone is safe before we get them out on the buses. chief colby, you mentioned mr. simpkins, 18 years of age, he was in that classroom as a student fighting with someone else with that weapon is your understanding at at this point? there was a video that i viewed and he was in a classroom where as to whether he was a student or not i do not have information right now. we are going to release his photograph after this press conference, and we are currently actively looking for him.
the fears and the anxieties of parents who are showing up here at the school and trying to get everybody reunited in a safe place away from the campus here. that s going to take a considerable amount of time over the next few hours as well. john? just to see if you can clear this up for me. chief colby, i believe, of the arlington police department did most of the briefing. at one point he said it was a fight between two students in class, and then at the end he said he was not certain if the 18-year-old suspect was a student, although the suspect was in the building. is that just the chief being cautious, or is there question as to whether this was a student? reporter: it s an 18-year-old suspect. without knowing exactly what that young man s status is in terms of was he still attending this school, had he you know, who knows what the situation might be. it s still a little too early to tell, especially from our standpoint speculating on what
hopefully the injuries are not life threatening that the young people sustained. juliette kayyem is also with us, the high school and terrorist analyst. one thing that struck me early on was chief colby went out of his way to explain this was a fight between two students in the classroom, sending the message to parents in the community that this was not a random act, this was not somebody storming into the building, this was a fight that escalated to the use of a handgun. that s exactly right. part of it is we still don t have family unification complete. the police chief said to family members, please do not come to the high school. they re just trying to manage to get the kids out. they re going to move the kids to a second facility and have the parent meet them there. that s pretty common. parents want to see their kids. look, this was a school shooting and no matter what, in the