at random all over our country continuously and not address it is shocking to me, especially when we look at the reaction that we're having to any incident during the counterterrorism era against al qaeda and isis. so why we wouldn't elevate this to a top priority nationwide so that people could feel safe anywhere in america, it's hard to understand. >> it's stark. starting the show with the national security threat that's unnamed from another country and ending the show with at least ten people shot at a super bowl parade in kansas city, missouri. clint watts, thank you very much. that's going to do it for me. "deadline: white house" starts right now. hi, everyone, it is 4:00 here in new york, i'm alicia mendez in for nicolle wallace. we are following breaking news out of kansas city where shots were fired. it is a fluid situation but here is what we know so far. officials say ten people were

shot and rushed to local areas hospitals. the shooting took place at a garage near the city's main train station. two people who are armed have been detained for further investigation. officials are asking people to exit the area as soon as possible. let's go now to nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch who is in kansas city, missouri, with the latest. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: i want to flag a picture you're seeing right now, this is a live image from just outside of union station on the outskirts of the stage area for the kansas city chiefs parade. you can see authorities appear to be putting someone in the back of a vehicle, someone who was escorted over to this vehicle and placed into it based on what our photographer has been able to see and that is the live picture you are seeing right now. we're going to stay with that picture on our camera so we can get as much footage of it as possible but i am going to continue talking about everything else that's unfolding out here and, you know, if you want to show other images by all means but we're going to keep

the camera over there so we can get as much footage of that as possible. here is what unfolded, we were at the immediate aftermath of the celebration for the kansas city chiefs. for context, this is a to unthat loves its football team. this was the back to back super bowl championship parade and rally, officials expected around a million people could be out here. we have really nice weather, it's around 60 degrees out here, that is something that can always boost the turnout at an event like this. and with so many people in the downtown, that would be like having roughly double the population of kansas city in this downtown area at the same time and in this immediate vicinity of union station where the rally was, there were thousands of people out here. the rally had just wrapped up, this was about an hour ago, a little bit more than an hour ago, and then we noticed something did not seem right. we saw people that were running away from the train station and that is something that you don't

expect in the aftermath of a large event. who goes to a sporting event and then runs out of the event? you know it's going to take a while to get out so you move at a trickle pace. people were running away from the area. at the same time we saw what appeared to be police officers rushing into the area, some of them even looking like they were jumping over the barricades up along the rally stage. we also at the same time had had authorities on rooftops in the area, including at least one long gun position, and we noticed those teams appeared to be taking the situation -- not that they weren't taking it seriously to begin with, but if it makes sense they were paying more attention or a different kind of attention to what was unfolding. we saw at least one of the people on these rooftops running away from the gun position and running back over to the area. so there was a sense of urgency on the rooftops. eventually we heard over the loudspeaker at least two different times a voice it appeared to be different voices so perhaps one was from officials, one was from event organizers, we heard at least

two announcements asking people to leave the area. but even after that, there were crowds in the area and based on what we could see from overhead and what we could hear overhead, i think that it's safe to say that the vast majority of people who were out here would not have realized what was unfolding even with the sirens in the background because, again, with so many people out here, you know there are police, you know there are ambulances on stand by and so it's not something that's initially maybe going to raise an alarm bell for you if you hear the sirens going on. we have had a fairly continuous stream of the sirens going on, even as people mild about, even as they were asked to leave the area. and just to add a little more context to this, we've even had children out here in the last 15 minutes or so i would say. so there have been families out here even as all of this was unfolding. again, we are talking about a small area in downtown crammed with an awful lot of people and even well after this incident was unfolding, we had people that were making their way out

of the area, calmly and walking, and i think that just speaks to if there were a broader threat it would not have been easy for people to quickly disperse. i just think that speaks to of course we're looking at the situation where officials have said at least ten people have been shot, there are two people in custody according to officials. but just think about with so many people here, and the way we've been seeing people make their way out of there, it's only so much faster that people could have been moving. i think that just speaks to the potential for something far worse to have potentially have unfolded and it seems that all things considered this was a better situation than it even could have been. of course, you don't want to hear about anyone being shot, but if that makes sense, you're looking at a situation where a lot of people were in a very vulnerable situation for a while. >> jesse, anything we know about the ten people who were shot? anything we know about the two people who are armed who have been detained for further investigation? >> reporter: we are getting very

little information on specifics of those people at this point. we don't have ages of the people who were shot, but i can just tell you who was out here. of course, you had the super bowl champions, the kansas city chiefs, star players, the team was out here. you had thousands of fans, little children, older people, i saw at least one person walking with a cane, lots of little kids. full spectrum of ages of people who would have been out here as all of this was unfolding and all of these people were trying to leave a concentrated area at the same time. they weren't all here but more broadly in downtown the estimate was about a million people in downtown kansas city today. >> jesse, as you've been speaking with us we are learning from the kansas city fire department they are confirming at least one dead. we're going to continue to bring you those numbers as we have them. let you know when we can expect to hear from officials. a crowd this large, jesse, in

the run up to this event, what were you hearing from officials about the type of preparations that were under way as it related to security? again, for something happening in a wide open space, a large crowd on a beautiful day, what was meant to be a celebration, talk to me about sort of the layers of security that were in place. >> reporter: yeah, and of course officials only share so much, right, because there's the visible security presence and then there's the elements of that that they don't want us to see. but i spoke to the mayor yesterday afternoon and this is something they've done here before. this is the third super bowl title for the chiefs in five years. over the last five years, this is the third time they've done this for the chiefs alone, that's not even talking about other sports teams. the mayor said this is something that goes on for months, this isn't an overnight thing, this isn't something they suddenly came up a plan for when the chiefs won the super bowl on sunday night. that's the broader situation. but i can also tell you, you

mentioned the weather. so they were going off of an estimate of about a million people based on last year's parade. the weather is better this year the mayor told me and this was something they were expecting could up the number of people. another thing that they were expecting could potentially factor into the weather is the taylor swift effect. we were waiting to see if she would be here. her boyfriend is on the kansas city chiefs, travis kelce, there's been all kinds of attention on that couple throughout the football season. although it appears she wasn't here, we didn't see her on any of the video we've been seeing but even the possibility of her being here because of her star power had officials thinking that there could be a larger crowd. what we are seeing in terms of the setup and we were right down there yesterday talking to the mayor and he told me what we were seeing was built for a bigger crowd potentially than what they had last year because of the factors that contributed to the anticipation of today. of course, this is back to back titles, we've met people who didn't come last year but said they came this year.

back to back is not something you see every day so that's going to maybe get more people excited. the weather is great to be outside in the middle of february. that was going to draw more people as well potentially. just a perfect storm of factors to boost the crowd size and then you have something like this happen. you hear that someone has died, that's of course just very unfortunate to be hearing. what was supposed to be a day of celebration for the city and its fans. >> jesse, before i let you go you have already brought us so much robust reporting but i want to circle back to where we started that segment with your camera focused on that van and action around that van. anything more you have learned or can tell us about what it is that we've been watching? >> reporter: at this point i don't think so, alicia. everything is fluid. another factor for ourselves and people who have been out here, which might contribute to the

not rushing away so much, cell signal has been an issue. when you have so many people in a concentrated area it's been hard to get cell reception. that has been our issue for much of this day. as the crowds were leaving and this event was unfolding we were starting to get the cell reception back. we are still working to get as much information as we can, but, you know, that area we have seen someone being led away, we have seen someone on a stretcher in that rough vicinity and i'm going to ask my photographer, chris, to back up a little bit. now that we can share you a little bit more of what's going on around here. give you an idea what unfolded out here. to the right side of the train station that's where we saw groups of fans appearing to be running away from the area. again, there were a lot of people just trying to trickle out of here. you're like why are they rushing away? at the same time there were those people off to the right side rushing into the area, appeared to be police officers, and then we looked up to the rooftops and on this hotel rooftop you can see there is still someone standing there with a long gun. at one point there were two people up there and one of the

two people ran that way on the rooftop and then ran back over, potentially to be grabbing something. again, that just speaks to the change in posture, the change in tone of the security presence we were noticing and as all of that was unfolding you had the people in the immediate vicinity rushing away from the area, but i can tell you more broadly, alicia, there were thousands of people who were still trickling out with, you know, their coolers, with their chairs, with their children. that was continuing as if there were a normal event unfolding. so we couldn't hear gunshots from all the way back here, it doesn't appear that the broader crowd could hear gunshots. so, you know, from our bird's-eye view we could tell something was not right, but i can tell you that for the many people who would have been down there, they probably did not realize at all what was unfolding just yards from where they were. >> nbc news's jesse kirsch live in kansas city, missouri. we will come back to you more as you have it. we have some more news. a senior white house official telling nbc news the white house

is closely monitoring the situation at the super bowl parade in kansas city, adding that federal law enforcement is on the scene supporting local officials. joining our conversation former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi, frank figluzzi. frank, you heard everything that jesse just reported there. which details most stand out to you? >> a number do, and i will be careful at this early stage to characterize, you know, my observations as nothing more than informed analysis. but a couple of things. one, you mentioned the federal resources on the scene. they will be looking at motive and their first goal is to determine whether this might be terrorist terroristic in nature. what i'm hearing so far and we don't know all the details is i would lean away from international terrorism in terms of an organized well-planned event. why do i say that? this is coming up at the end of the event, at the garage at the

end -- near the end of the parade area. it's not falling into the category of let me maximize attention for my attack. let me get in the middle of the parade route, let me get in front of the cameras and do this while the event is unfolding. that appears to not be the case at least right now. number two, as we're reporting, there is at least ten people reportedly shot. it seems like one that has died according to the fire department. that's a lot of people and what sounds like a relatively small, contained place in a short time. that may mean that we have a long gun involved or we have an automatic weapon or not semiautomatic weapon involved because of the nature of this. next, we have two people reportedly in custody. if this was a well-planned, organized attack, those people would likely have had an escape route. and would not have been in custody right now. so if i were pressed hard on my

own observations i would say this is more of a contained, local event, could be a beef between two people, between two gangs, could be some kind of domestic thing or targeted at certain people who were shot because of their affiliation with a group at the parade, but that's what the federal resources are going to be focused on on the scene. >> frank, the verbiage that was released around the two people, i want to read it to you because it was specific and in the many mass shootings that you and i have covered together i have never seen verbiage exactly like this. two people who are armed had been detained for further investigation. the nature of that language, it seems to be stopping short of saying that these people were seen actively participating. >> yeah, i agree that's very careful language and it may simply mean that from a legal perspective the officers making

that didn't see it happen, weren't there but maybe witnesses were pointing these two people out. in this day and age many people are armed in public, they might have something to do with it, they might or might not have fired rounds, they might have been trying to defend themselves with their own weapons. so this makes sense to me, but you're right, it indicates there is not a police officer who is actually witnessed those two as responsible. >> frank figluzzi, you are staying with me. i want to bring back into the conversation nbc news correspondent jess kirsch who is live for us this kansas city. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: a couple of things, alicia. first let's talk about what more we know about the people who were shot. according to the five department, and this is, again, preliminary initial information, right, and we know things change rapidly, sometimes in these situations, as you hear another round of sirens behind me here. according to the fire department three people are in critical condition, five are in serious

condition, one is in nonlife-threatening condition and one person is dead. of course, we knew of at least one death according to the fire department. we also know according to information we've received that the governors of both kansas and missouri, we're right on the state line here in kansas city, missouri, the governors of both kansas and missouri we're told were at this event and are both okay. we're also now hearing from patrick mahomes, the quarterback in the super bowl mvp who was, again, on that stage with his teammates at this rally i should say with his teammates celebrating within the last two hours or so. he is writing on twitter, praying for kansas city. so, again, we're talking about just complete swings in mood here and activity. we went from a celebratory high for this city to a very frightening low. we're talking about going from the city coming together by the thousands if not close to a million people according to an estimate from before the rally, to be celebrating the kansas

city chiefs to now looking at the aftermath of this event turning deadly, alicia. >> nbc's jessie kirsch, thank you. let's bring in nbc news investigative correspondent tom winter. tom, to review the preliminary numbers that jesse was walking us through, you have three people in critical condition, five in serious condition, one with nonlife-threatening injuries and you have one who is already deceased. what more are you learning about the current state of this investigation? >> i want to be cautious here pause this is an early and preliminary juncture of this investigation. obviously officials on the ground in kansas city are focused on trying to solve this crime, but based on state and local and federal law enforcement officials who have been briefed on what occurred here earlier this afternoon, they say at this juncture of the investigation it is believed to be criminal in nature and not initially believed to be terrorism. again, this incident is believed to be criminal in nature at this

very early stage of the investigation and not initially believed to be terrorism. what do i mean by that? well, what we mean about that is there's either been some sort of a dispute, that these were individuals that had some sort of an issue prior to the parade or during the parade, as alluded to earlier, this is a situation where obviously we have a lot of people compacted in a small space, alcohol is being served, you may have individuals that were in a prior dispute that met up -- that created the shooting situation that we saw, but at least now where law enforcement is looking towards is more towards criminal versus the terrorism component of this. i think that that's important because obviously it's on the back of everybody's mind, we have active shooters now, we have people with all sorts of different ideologies, potential events in the middle east that could set somebody off, potential political issues at home that could set somebody off. a whole host of different ideologies we've seen over the

years that has led to violence, but sometimes it's just as simple as a dispute or sometimes it's as simple as two known criminals who have gotten into an incident with each other. i think that's the direction that this is headed now. based on the reporting of myself and my colleagues who cover law enforcement here at nbc news, that's what we're getting, but we will continue to make calls and try to get more as this investigation progresses. >> tom, i have one more question for you before i allow you to continue making those calls. can you give us a sense of the resources that are being marshaled for this investigation, the interplay between local police enforcement and federal agencies? >> i think it really depends on the two individuals they have in custody. if the kansas city police department which is not a small police department, certainly, you know, a city police department, if they know who these individuals are and they have eyewitnesses that point them to these two people being involved in this shooting, and they're either known to local law enforcement because they have a criminal past or people

are providing statements that are very consistent saying, oh, they got in a fight and they were pushing each other because somebody stepped in front of somebody else -- i'm delivering to you a hypothetical of course -- they can match that up with cameras, they can match that up with any other types of information that they get, they might have body worn camera that they can quickly review. this is something that does not need the full force of the fbi and atf to solve if that's what we're looking at. they certainly -- and the detectives will know exactly what to do to be able to get that type of video and given the fact that this occurs apparently near union station, you can imagine that you would have to to think that there is a fair amount of surveillance cameras and i think actually dead center of that shot we are looking at there appears to me to be a surveillance camera. hopefully they will have plenty of video of this and will be able to piece together exactly what happened here. i think it's also important to note that the kansas city police department said that they have individuals they are holding

inside of union station for a while trying to make sure there was no threat inside the station, they also didn't want people fleeing the station into an area where there could have been a shooting going on. those individuals have been allowed to leave there. it appears that this scene has emptied out. it's just unfortunately as our colleague frank figluzzi mentioned earlier, it's a sad state of society that guns are out there and that unfortunately individuals choose to use them. >> nbc's tom winter. tom, more as you have it. i want to bring into our conversation former missouri senator claire mccaskill. senator, you were not there today, but i know that watching a community you love go through something like this always hits home. jesse kirsch, our colleague, referred to kansas city as a town that loves its football team. tell me what more we need to understand and know about kansas city. >> well, first of all, my heart is breaking. this is a wonderful community and there were about a million plus people there today that

were loving each other and were forgetting about all their differences and coming together in a joyous, joyous moment, and now it will always be defined by whoever did this unbelievable act. what you're looking at is union station, union station is primarily a museum and a gathering place, it has restaurants in it. the train station is really separate and apart from it, kind of down underneath. it is on the cusp of downtown, the hotel that your reporter referred to earlier is called crown center, it is an area that has office buildings and hotels and some shopping in union station and this is where we have for three different times now in kansas city celebrated wildly an amazing accomplishment that our pro football team has made. i'm terribly sad. i will tell you that the kansas

city police department i worked closely with that police department for a decade, both as an assistant prosecutor and as the elected prosecutor in kansas city. it is top notch professional. there were 900 of them there. i am confident they will find the people that did this, however many there may be. i am confident that it will be prosecuted at a state level, unless there is some kind of terrorism component to it, which it does not appear that there is based on the facts that have been developed on the ground. jean peters baker is the prosecutor in kansas city that would have in charge of that prosecution. she has dozens of experienced in that office. stacey graves just like jean peters baker is the police chief. he is a 25-year veteran of the kansas city, missouri, police department. these people know what they're doing. i will tell you what i think most of my friends are feeling

right now in kansas city is both heartbreak, but also anger. there is something that is the anger that people feel that someone would ruin this, that would ruin this sense of community, this joyous sense of community, is terrible. you know, missouri has some of the most open, liberal gun laws in the country in terms of, you know, anybody can carry a long gun in open anywhere. our police departments in urban areas are challenged by the laws because they are so limited as to what they can do with people who are carrying weapons of war openly on the streets of st. louis and kansas city. you know, they want to make sure the missouri legislature has been dominated, missouri has been dominated by rural leaders, republican leaders, that think guns are okay because they relate to rural areas as opposed

to a million people in a concentrated area and the kind of damage that a long gun can do, especially one that can be fired rapidly to human life. it is another sad, sad chapter in america's love affair with military-style long weapons that can kill a lot of people and hurt a lot of people in a short period of time and i don't -- i don't care if anybody says, oh, she's being political about guns at this terrible moment. yeah, well, that's when you have to be. that's when people -- i guarantee you the majority of people in this country want something to change about how dangerous it has become to be in crowded urban spaces or school rooms. it is just unconscionable that we have allowed guns to go this far in this country. >> senator mccaskill, i am so grateful that you are in this chair on a very hard day. i want you to stick with us and i want to go pack to frank figluzzi.

if our team could just pull up the images of what this parade looked like earlier in the day. the celebration that was going on in kansas city because i think people need to see that and be able to contrast it to the scenes that we are seeing now. those photos of throngs of people happy, cheering, showing up, frank, to celebrate a motorcade, a parade, all of the trappings of a celebration. i want you to pull a few threads through for me, frank. i want you to talk about what we heard from tom winters vis-a-vis the likely criminal nature of this case, understanding that we are in the very early phases of this investigation. some of what claire talked about, how missouri being an open carry state complicates areas like the one we are watching right here, even a happy, festive day with this many people. and then the role that you would anticipate, frank, the fbi is playing right now. >> yeah, there's a lot there and

as claire said, it's early, but it's never too early to talk about, as she did, the role of weapons in our society. we just last weekend were reporting on a shooting at a megachurch in houston, people going to their place of worship and that being interrupted by gunfire and a fatality. here we are with a joyous occasion in kansas city, and the same thing happens. too often i think what the media finds is eventually a finding perhaps that, oh, well, the perpetrators had lawful possession of those guns. okay. and then they kind of wash their hands of it without a further analysis. does that mean it's okay? does that mean that those people should have had those guns even though they might have possessed them lawfully? what do we know about them that would have caused us to do this better in terms of assessing and vetting people for gun ownership? what can we changed?

that's where we seem to fall down as a et so. not that we take constitutional rights away from people, but rather that we be more careful about who it is that we allow to exercise those rights in our society. so, look, the role of the fbi here as we had talked about just minutes ago, alicia, the indicators that i saw were not a planned terroristic event, that would have more likely happened in front of cameras in the middle of a parade route, targeted high-profile people. we have the opposite happening here as the parade wrapped up and we have it happening at one end of the route as people are leaving. so the criminal thing makes sense here and then tom winters is seemingly collaborating that at least at this early stage with police sources that he has. but the fbi is going to look at this first and say can we offer assistance in terms of crime scene analysis? you know, state of the art

computer assisted graphics and design that will help map out exactly what happened and trace the route of the shooters using camera footage from throughout the city. where did they start their journey? where did they move? who did they talk to? how do they end up where they ended up doing the shooting. it's a big city, there will be lots of security cameras and the fbi is adept at piecing all of that together and giving us almost a second by second account of who was where when. so that will be offered. victim witness specialists, the fbi has the best i've ever seen and they might be flown in from around the region, from other field offices to come along side the victims of this shooting and brief them on their rights as victims and offer the kind of counseling that's needed. so whether there's agents that have to pair up with detectives to interview perhaps hundreds of

people theoretically, then that will happen as well. >> former kri director and assistant to president obama on homeland security now an nbc senior national security analyst john brennan. i want to warn you and our audience we're expecting to hear from kansas city police in about a minute or two, so forgive me if i interrupt you. let's review what we know. ten people shot, three people this chris cal condition, five in serious condition, one with a nonlife-threatening injury, one already dead. you've heard what the other analysts have been saying. we know that the white house says that they are closely monitoring the situation. can you give us a sense, director brennan, of the federal response to an incident like this? >> well, the federal government and the biden administration will be relying heavily on the fbi to provide that interaction with the local officials and local law enforcement that really have the primary responsibility to address this

issue. and to make sure that the fbi is lending whatever assistance possible to local authorities in order to understand better what might have happened here. it appears as though this early incident is not an ongoing active shooter situation, so there's the need to take care of the victims, but also then to try to determine whether or not this is something that is criminal in nature as was mentioned earlier, possibly could be. or whether there is some type of other connection to it, a terrorist incident, a hate incident or something along those lines. so, again, the fbi and the atf as well as homeland security security officials who are on the scene, given that this parade is basically a national event as was the super bowl on sunday, there has been, i think, extensive interaction between federal, state and local officials and law enforcement in the run up to the super bowl, in the run up to this parade and so

i'm sure you have the people who have already been in contact with one another continuing to work on this to make sure that any remaining threat is going to be addressed and mitigated as well as doing the investigation that is necessary to find out who the perpetrators are and whether or not there's any connection to any type of political, ideological or terrorism connection here. >> director brennan, as i just said just in a few moments we expect to hear from the kansas city police department. what questions, what pieces of information are you going to be listening for? >> well, obviously an update because we're getting these little snippets of facts and frequently those early reports are not thorough or accurate. so trying to understand exactly that first of all that the threat has been addressed in terms of there's no ongoing threat. that individuals of concern are in custody. the number of victims, those who have been unfortunately killed or injured, as well as the

status of the investigation. but i presume that given that this happened just very recently that you're only going to get a limited amount of information that's coming from the local authorities and there will probably be the promises of follow-on statements and press conferences as more is known because the folks on the ground are also trying to determine exactly what happened here, who was responsible and what needs to be done further on the investigative front. >> as you know, director brennan, there's always a desperate want for information in cases like this. talk to me a little bit about the tension for local law enforcement between being transparent, sharing what they know, giving updates on the state of an investigation while also making sure not to tip their own hand. >> well, there's an understandable clamor for information as you point out, certainly from the media. given that this was such a high-profile event with high-profile individuals in attendance, the media is on

site. so there's going to be a constant pull for information from the media to the local officials, but also i'm sure that there are a lot of very worried individuals who scattered as a result of the violence here and probably there is great concern that family members or friends, loved ones who have not been able to be contacted, people worried that they might have been victims here. so there's going to be a real interest in who these victims are, contacting their families, making sure there is not any unnecessary and unhelpful speculation that goes out and so the local authorities are going to want to make sure that there's going to be a very closely coordinated effort here to engage publicly as well as to engage with those families who unfortunately have been touched by this tragedy. >> director brennan, stay with me, i want to bring senator claire mccaskill back into this conversation. you talked about being sad,

which i think we're all sad as we watch this. you also talked about being angry, which i think is an emotion that is shared by a lot of people who have watched what is happening and feel it happens too often in this country and to your point, when these things happen and then people talk about gun safety measures, people say it's too soon, don't focus on the politics. claire, if we don't talk about it now i'm not sure when there will ever be the appetite to talk about it. >> i agree. and i should say we don't know for sure at this point whether handguns or long guns were used. we do know that a lot of people were hit in a very short period of time. so clearly there was -- and i will tell you i have been in contact with people at the very highest level of law enforcement in kansas city and they caution that it's early, but it does appear that this is a street beef, an argument between people

that escalated to the point of being idiots and they did permanent damage to what the community of kansas city has always been proud of which is the ability to come together in a massive way to do something positive and uplifting. it is -- i will tell you this, i bet if they're charged and i bet their criminal defense lawyers asks for a change of venue because it will be very hard to take the emotion out of a jury for the people who did this today. >> our lawyers always remind us that even as the investigation is under way by law enforcement there's also in the background a legal case that is building and brewing. frank figluzzi, i want to ask you the two people who, again, they've been referred to as two people who are armed, have been detained for further

investigation. give us a sense of the type of information that law enforcement is trying to extract from those two individuals. >> well, there are things going on simultaneously, but all aimed at getting to the truth and the facts. so almost immediately these two individuals would have been read their miranda rights. their identities would be obtained, either voluntarily or through looking at their id cards in their wallets and or through running their fingerprints through the system. then they would be asked do you want to talk or not? here is what we know is happening around you through witness statements, do you have anything to say or do you want a lawyer? they're trying to get to the facts out of these people. if one or more are going to talk and they may play one against the other, they're going to want to know why. what happened? where did you get the gun? when did this start? how long ago? what's the beef? what's your problem? you tell us, this is your chance

to get the story out. while that's going on,at the same time investigators are pulling all of the security camera footage from the entire area, particularly the route -- the parade route and that garage area, trying to find them. and then they'll use that if necessary, if the subjects are talking and lying, the detectives will say, well, that's very interesting because we have you here on camera, not there where you said you were. so, please, explain. and then of course dozens if not hundreds of witness interviews. don't be surprised if the police put out a statement saying if you have footage of the area, if you saw this, if you know these two people, please tell us what you know. that we may see that happen. and that might be an indication that they are not necessarily getting the cooperation they need. >> frank, as i mentioned, we are waiting to hear from the kansas city police. we're told that a briefing would begin at 4:30. that is obviously running a little late.

we will cut to that as soon as we have it. i asked director brennan but i also want to ask you, frank, the information you were going to be listening for as that briefing unfolds. >> yeah, it's interesting, i think -- i think we may know if the press conference happens by the police, we may not within a few minutes whether they've figured this out or not base id on the language. if we hear, for example, there is no continuing threat. we have our subjects in custody, we can breathe a sigh of relief that it's not a continuing active threat. secondly i will be listening for any indication that this was as we're believing at this early juncture that is correct this was criminal and not terrorism, that this was indeed some kind of dispute between parties, then, again, we can kind of breathe a sigh of relief, so to speak, that this was not a planned terroristic act. those are the things i will be listening for.

listening carefully as to the role of the federal government here because if we hear, look, the fbi is coming in and is taking the lead, well, then we have an entirely different situation and that puts it more the terrorist bucket. >> we will be listening for those points as well. claire, sometimes when we cover these stories we focus for very understandable reasons on the people who have been most directly impacted, in this case the ten people who were shot, the three people who are in critical condition, the five who are in serious condition, the one who has a nonlife-threatening injury, the person who has already passed, there are the ripple effects with each of them to their family, to their friends, to their communities, but there is a bigger level of trauma when you talk about an event this big in a community this tight knit, right? it is a community-shared trauma now. all of these years later after the many mass shootings that we have experienced and witnessed

as a country, not only have we not properly grappled with gun safety in this country, claire, we've also not set up the resources that are necessary for individuals and for whole communities to reckon with what a loss like this means for them and for theirs. >> kansas city has seen other tragedies. we have a heartbreaking collapse of a walkway at a hyatt decades ago that killed a lot of people that were attending an afternoon tea dance at the hyatt hotel, and it put a mark on kansas city and many of us still remember where we were when we heard about it, but this is another level because this parade and what it was about is such a point of pride for kansas city. you know, there is a little bit of chip on your shoulder in the midwest that sometimes people feel like we are flyover country

and that people don't take us seriously. you know, i've had people say to me, oh, you are from the cow town. you are from kansas city. and so to have a national profile courtesy of an amazing, successful organization called the kansas city chiefs, it was such -- it's such a point of pride. it really puts kansas city on the map in a way that nothing else could or has. and to have it tarnished like this, to have it now be about potentially some idiots using guns to try to prove who is right or wrong and killing somebody in the process and maybe killing more people and certainly dramatically impacting the lives of everyone who was near and around this shooting, is just unbelievable. and it's so -- i just can tell you that people will be so

frustrated and everyone is, i know, thinking we pray for the people who have been hurt, we are so sad, but, you know, please, don't think that kansas city that this represents who we are because it certainly doesn't. it's a wonderful, wonderful community and people care very deeply about one another and, you know, it is -- it is really a place that frankly will have a hard time getting over this because of how deeply people feel about this -- the chiefs, about their ability to celebrate, what it means to kansas city and what this says about what some people have become that are living amongst us at this point. >> and to your point, claire, as you well know from meeting with victims of these mass shootings it is a thing that communities never get over. let's bring in cedric alexander, former member of president obama's task force on 21st

century police. we've been talking about the federal response and the role that the fbi may be playing in all of this. take me inside the local policing units, the work that they are doing as a part of this investigation right now. what you expect to hear from them at this briefing which we believe to be imminent. >> i think i have you muted, so let's get you unmuted so that he can with hear from you. there you go. >> thank you. i think what we're going to hear from them, hopefully shortly, is going to give us some idea of what took place and the persons that they have in custody may or may not be involved, indirectly. i think at this point anything that we talk about, as you heard many of your other guests speak to, is pretty speculative at this point. but here is the most troubling part of all of this to me, this is a great american city, another great american city that

has suffered a tragedy in celebration of a community that has supported its sports team, in a community that in which, too, got a chance to highlight to the rest of the country, the rest of the world who it is and what it is. this in no way to me, and i've lived in a number of cities and policed in a number of cities, this in no way takes anything from the city of kansas. if it does any in the end -- >> cedric, forgive me for interrupting you, we're going to go live to kansas city. listen in. >> -- after i'm done speaking police chief graves will give details on the incident that happened earlier today. a few things that i want to make sure we note at the outset. first today, we had 600 kansas city, missouri, police department officers, 2r50 from outside agencies. we went out today like everyone in kansas city looking to have a celebration. that celebration was marred by a

shooting today. and we recognize that there are some who are injured, we are praying for the safety of everyone. i have talked to a few different folks so far. one, we have spoken to the kansas city chiefs, who made clear that their prayers are with everyone who was at the parade today, everyone in kansas city and everyone who was touched by this incident. they also noted that their players, coaches and staff are all accounted for at this point and safe. we, however, note that this is a fluid situation so all that we are sharing now may change as the hours go ahead. we've also received a call from the white house that offered federalssistae in the investigation. we had federal agencies present today. we appreciate that and certainly in the days ahead and the hours ahead we will make sure we continue to do this work. i will say personally first a thank you to the women and men of law enforcement. to the women and men who work with the kansas city fire department and our other agencies. when the shooting started, i like many others ran and ran for safety. i saw a number of agencies

including the kansas city police department officers with guns drawn who were running towards danger. we thank them for that. as i was leaving the scene i saw members of our kansas city fire department administering aid to folks who were seriously injured without concern for the shootings and the challenges that were near them. this is absolutely a tragedy, the likes of which we would have never expected in kansas city and the likes of which we will remember for some time. however, i want to say thank you to those who are making sure that we are safe today, those who are investigating this incident and those who will continue to make sure that those who committed these acts today are brought to justice. we will come pack for some questions at the end of chief's comments but now the police chief stacey graves. >> chief stacey graves, kansas city police department. at the conclusion of the chiefs' rally today there were shots fired on the west side of union station. immediately officers responded to the area, took two people

into custody, and also immediately rendered life sustaining aid to those victims. we're still gathering information on the number and the status of victims, but, like i said, we know that one of the victims is deceased. we also know that officers ran towards danger. officers were there to keep everyone safe. i'm angry at what happened today. the people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment. we had over 800 law enforcement officers, kansas city and other agencies, at the location to keep everyone safe. because of bad actors, which were very few, this tragedy occurred. even in the presence of

uniformed law enforcement officers who, again, ran towards them and took them into custody. to the people who are injured in this tragedy, our hearts go out to you and your families. this investigation is just beginning and we are working safely to clear all surrounding areas and businesses. this is still an active investigation. we will continue to keep you updated. we will keep you updated on twitter and most likely a follow-up press availability. [ inaudible question ] >> no, one of our victims has been declared deceased. we have -- right now we have up

to 10 to 15 injured -- [ inaudible question ] >> yes. right now we do not have an exact number of people who were victims of a gunshot wound. it could be upwards from 10 to 15 with one deceased. >> do you know how many are in critical condition at this point? >> i do not have conditions on our victims just yet. >> any believed to be children? >> i do not believe that any of them were children. >> were any law enforcement injured in this, first responders? >> nothing of note. >> chief, what prompted -- what do you believe now prompted the incident? >> that is still under investigation. i myself was outside when i heard the shots fired. it is an ongoing investigation, it's going to take us to take u bit to see what led up to the shooting. i will say we do have two suspects in custody. [ inaudible question ] >> i have -- i have heard that as well.

i have heard that fans got involved in the apprehension or the pursuit of one of the suspects. i cannot confirm that right now but that is something that i have heard myself. yes? >> response time? [ inaudible question ] >> absolutely. as soon as the rally concluded, there were shots fired on the west side of union station. officers were on scene in the area. i know one of the suspects was immediately pursued on foot. like i said, there's two suspects in custody. i have heard the information that was just requested. i will confirm or deny that, but after that, immediately officers began rendering life aid and calling in the fire department

to assist those victims. >> do you know if there were more than two people taken into custody? we had two people in custody, two people live on our air being taken into handcuffs and being put into vans? does the investigation still continue? >> i don't know exactly the two that your camera caught on video being loaded into a wagon, i don't know that, but i can tell you in and around that scene it is still active, not active in necessarily threats but it's a very active scene. we are still investigating. this is still early on. we still have parties that are walking into hospitals. >> chief, do you know anything about the suspect in terms of where they're from? >> i do not know that but that's something that i also will be finding out. >> we're hearing upwards of 20 shots. can you talk about the number? >> i'm hearing 10 to 15, possibly 15 with the one that is

deceased. >> and do you know anything about the time responding to the area? >> i don't have anything about -- i can't give you an answer on the timing, i can just say that's when it occurred and we are investigating what led up to that. maybe once we get some of those details we'll know why that happened at that time. right now it's still too new [ inaudible question ] >> that is something that is under investigation. >> talk about how you were on the ground and you yourself had to run for safety. i understand we're still waiting on a time line and trying to determine what exactly happened. we're at a super bowl parade and this is what the country is talking about fwhou. what is your message to this city in a time like this? >> i second the comments by the chief of police. i'm heart broken. first of all, i'm praying for the victims and the families impacted and i start with them. i'm incredibly upset,

disappointed. i was there with my wife. i was there with my mother. we never would have thought that we along with chiefs players, along with fans, hundreds of thousands of people would be forced to run for our safety today. i think that i'll let the investigation shake out before coming to any further conclusions but i think the initial response is absolutely angry. we have done a number of these now and this is a day that a lot of people look forward to. something they remember for a lifetime and what they shouldn't have to remember is the threat of gun violence marring a day like this, injuring them and their families. this morning i was actually thinking about bringing my child, as many people in kansas city did, and i don't want us to have to in our country for every big event think about a concern of being shot. as the chief noted, we had a lot of law enforcement officers there today. they did exceptional and outstanding work and i will second that again because on

your time line point, i was inside of union station. we heard something. number of us started running and i see a stream of officers going the exact other direction, in with guns drawn ready to address danger and that was the situation throughout. people who responded absolutely immediately, but i wish that we lived in a world where they wouldn't have to do that. i wished we lived in a world where we wouldn't have to see incidents like that. i'm as heart broken as anybody. we will do a full and thorough investigation. i hope that we bring whoever this is to justice and we will continue to try to make sure that we can be as safe as possible, however, when you have people who decide to bring guns to events, when you have people who are deciding to try to marr events, celebratory ones like this one, all of us start to become members of this club that none of us want to be a part of, which is those who have experienced mass shootings. i hope for kansas city this is one of the last times we experience one of them.

>> what's that? >> in danger at any point? >> was i in danger? >> were any of the players, the chiefs players? >> you know what, i think we'll let the investigation take a look at that. the police department responded effectively. i think incredibly quickly to make sure that people would be out of harm's way. that being said, a number of us had to flee from a situation because we heard a sound of gunshots so i'll let you answer your own question whether you think that puts you in danger or not. in my view, any time shots are being fired and you don't know where they are flying, perhaps there is a situation of danger. >> can i ask a fire question? >> [ inaudible question ]. >> we've covered that. we don't have that information. >> just answer real quick. hold on, 10 to 15 is what we have, potentially 15, one deceased. i don't have a condition on the

other gunshot victims. >> those are all gunshot victims. >> what fire question -- because chief -- >> we're going to have a lot of updates, guys. we have to go inside and gather this information. >> follow on twitter. >> i just have one -- >> we're watching a briefing from the police chief in kansas city, stacy graves. the mayor let's listen. >> i'm angered by what happened but i want you to know that the kansas city, missouri, police department and all the law enforcement officers that were there today serving and protecting did the best that they could and i'm so proud of them, that they ran into danger getting two people into custody and at the same time rendering life sustaining aid to those victims. we were here for a safe celebration and because of two bad actors, or more, it is why we are standing here today. we will recover as a city.

my heart goes out to our victim who is deceased but your police department stands ready and we are invested in this the safety and betterment of kansas city. thank you. >> follow the twitter account and we'll put the updates we have on twitter. we'll update you if there are more news releases. >> again, we're just watching a briefing from the chief of police in kansas city, stacie graves, who you just saw at the microphone empassioned about what has happened today. mayor quinton lukas, a few updates they were able to give us. first, just a state of the number of police officers who were on the scene. 600 from kansas city, 250 from outside agencies. they have spoken with the chiefs. all of their players, coaches and staff accounted for. reminding us this is a fluid situation. a call from the white house

placed to mayor lukas offering all assistance. we'll talk in a moment about what that assistance might look like. the mayor himself talking about the fact he was there with some members of his family, that he earlier in the day considered taking his children with him as he ran to safety. he watched police officers run towards danger. he saw members of the fire department administering life saving care and then we heard from police chief graves. a few details there of note, one that ten to 15 shots they believe were fired. they have two people in custody as believe they are calling two people suspects reminding us that this investigation is still active. i want to bring in frank fagluzzi. one of the big things we're watching out for, were they saying the threat was contained, that this was done or were they saying this investigation was ongoing? what struck you about what we just heard from police chief graves? >> right.

so i did not hear, correct me if i'm wrong, a definitive statement that this is over, the threat is over, we have our -- we have our subjects in custody. right, so, look, it's early. she was honest. that's what we should be expecting from the police right now is honesty and transparency. i even caught the phrase that the police are still, quote, clearing, unquote, the area. the if she's referring to traffic and large people themes, that's one thing. if she's referring to the tactical use of the word clear, that means possibly they're in buildings in the area looking for other subjects. so it's early. there might be other people involved as part of an interview interrogation that will go on with two subjects if they're willing to speak. i think we did hear correctly about the heroism of both the paramedic and rescue personnel and the police officers. thankfully they seem to have

gotten there very quickly. there were 800 or more of them there and that security worked in terms of apprehension and medical care so there's a bright spot, yes. i hate to say this, in this day and age if you are going to be wounded in a shooting, you certainly want lots and lots of ems a and police officers around. we did learn a whole lot more at this press conference than we knew previously. >> frank, stay with me. for those of you just joining us, it is now 5:00 in new york, 4:00 until kansas city. a shooting following the chiefs super bowl parade has left at least one person dead and 10 to 15 injured. among the injured are three in critical condition, five in serious condition and one with nonlife threatening injuries. the kansas city police department said that two suspects are in custody. three law enforcement officials telling nbc news the shooting

appears to be criminal in nature, not terrorism. we heard from the kansas city mayor and police chief just minutes ago who said they are still gathering information on the victims. here's chief of police stacie graves. >> i'm angry at what happened today. the people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment. we had over 800 law enforcement officers, kansas city and other agencies, at the location to keep everyone safe. because of bad actors, which were very few, this tragedy occurred. eastern in the presence of uniformed law enforcement officers who, again, ran towards them and took them into custody. to the people who are injured in this tragedy, our hearts go out to you and your families.

>> affiliates in kansas city have been on the ground talking to parade attendees from today. here's one woman who was there with her daughter. >> it was very scary. this is our second situation. i don't know a while back -- >> eight years ago we were at work at hyland elementary where there was an active shooter across the street and we had to race all the kids to the gym and wait for the parents to come and get them. so being with my daughter, making sure she's safe is my number one priority. and coming down here to celebrate and then end on such a sad note. it's devastating. >> only in america. let's go back to nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch who is in kansas city for us. jesse? >> reporter: based on what we know from officials, i'll give you a sketch of how this appears to have unfolded. right behind us here, that's union station. you can see there's a stage

there. back-to-back super bowl champions. that is where they had been rallying after a parade. this started around noon eastern and the party was still going on for hours. i'd say it was wrapping somewhere around 3 p.m. eastern. apologies if my time is off. i will double check that. we of course are doing a time zone map over here, but what i can tell you based on what officials have said is to the left of that stage, that is the general area where officials say that this shooting is said to have occurred. you can see there still appear to be first responders gathering out there. more broadly this field, which was filled with thousands of people, there continue to be some people trickling through the area, but by and large the crowds are gone. i want to flag a couple of things that stuck out from the press conference we had with authorities. the police chief said over 800 law enforcement officers were out here for the parade. i can tell you that there were also security teams out here. for example, there's a hotel

nearby and there was security checking on if people were staying at that hotel to be going into the hotel, right? they didn't want thousands of people who were staying there to be going inside. even more broadly the law enforcement presence, there was a good amount of security personnel here in the broadest sense. i can also tell you though that on the security front it was pretty easy to get very close to that stage. i'd say within about 25, maybe closer to 50 yards of it and you wouldn't have needed to have gone through a metal detector. there were people camping out overnight to be up close for the chiefs celebration and there was no metal detector needed to go through that area. there was no bag sweep best i can tell. i can't say for certain that was the entire vicinity up close, but i can tell you you can get fairly close and not need to have had your bags checked to see what you had with you. i can also tell you that we spoke with the mayor yesterday about security preps, and he told me this isn't something they planned overnight.

this isn't something that came together last minute when the chiefs won on sunday night, this is something they planned for for months. also, they're the back-to-back super bowl champs. they did this last year. they're familiar with this, they did this three times in the last five years. they are familiar with these kinds of security preparations. there were extra contingencies this year. you can see the sun in our faces. it is warm out here. it is 60 degrees. that could bring more people out. the possibility of taylor swift being tied in with the chiefs because of her boyfriend, travis kelce on the team, the possibility that she could be here, even if she wasn't here, which it doesn't appear, even if she wasn't here some of her fans would come here and that could boost the number of people that were here. all officials estimated ahead of time about 1 million people, a million people could be here. to put this in context, it it wouldn't have been here, spread out. a two mile roughly parade route

that led to this rally point. certainly thousands of people here. that estimate of a million would have been spread out around the downtown. that's about twice the population of kansas city packing into a relatively small downtown area. so you can imagine that people were trickling out of here as this was unfolding. we saw with our own eyes and to think if there were a broader threat instead of something that appears to have been concentrated closer to the station, people would have been trying, you imagine, to have been fleeing for their lives. it would have been difficult to quickly move for their lives because of the sheer number of people. there wasn't the best sell reception for a while. it was hard to get messages and calls through. people may not have been able to get alerts realizing what unfolded. >> jesse, thank you so much. i want to bring into our conversation former senator from missouri claire mccaskill. a few things that jumped out to me what we heard from the mayor just a short time ago. just the number of resources

that were deployed. 600 members of the kansas city police force. 250 outside agencies. this wasn't a question of were there enough folks on the scene to respond, this is a reminder of sort of the moment that we find ourselves in, the country we live in. specifically as you said to me earlier when you're talking about a state that has some of the most lax gun laws in the country. >> yeah. speaking of guns, i have been back in touch with someone very, very high in law enforcement in kansas city and i asked the question, was this long guns or handguns? and i got a brief response, both. so i'm confident that that is the case, that both types of guns were somehow involved in this shooting, and i might note that there are people that are now talking on twitter about their experience from the

parade. one really stuck out at me and that was that the governor, who is proud to say that we should never allow the government to have any say about anyone having a gun under any circumstances, a very, very vocal proponent of the very lax gun laws we have in missouri, he noticed -- this person noticed the governor moving away from the scene surrounded by his security detail. obviously the people who were shot did not have that advantage and it is, i think, a sad commentary that we have gotten to the point in this -- and i was just thinking, you know, i remember when we used to always talk about security and what we would do around the saint patrick's parade in kansas city. it is a big parade. there are people that are known to engage in a lot of alcohol consumption at the st. patrick's

day parade, so we always worked very hard on security when i was the d.a. in kansas city around the saint patrick's parade. i'm thinking now in just a few weeks will people not come? will they not -- will there not be another joyous holiday in kansas city that has been a tradition? will it somehow fade because families are now afraid to come to a gathering that should be all about community? i don't know. i thought quinten did a great job at the press conference. i might say frank mentioned about the scene not clear. i think what the chief was referring to is they have not finished the job of collecting all of the physical evidence. as frank knows, it is a really exacting process to make sure you cover every inch of ground and look at every single thing that might be relevant to the shooting, not just casings but other items, maybe of clothing,

of anything that might end up being relevant to the case that needs to be made in a court of law. i also would say that i am confident this case is going to be tried at the state level. i am confident that most likely the charges would be first degree murder and it would be tried in the jackson county circuit court that is about ten blocks away from the site of the shooting. and i also want to add, alicia, one of the blessings of this and maybe one of the reasons we didn't have more loss of life is two highly qualified trauma hospitals are very, very close to the scene of the shooting, both children's mercy and truman medical center that are very accustomed to gunshot wounds, especially truman, because it is a high trauma and public access hospital. they would -- i'm sure that most of the victims, if not all, were taken to those two hospitals and that the people at those hospitals would be the right people to be able to handle that

kind of emergency and that kind of -- the kind of medical care that would be needed in those moments. >> i was going to ask you, the mayor did talk about bringing these folks to justice. you gave us a sense of what justice will look like. joining us now on the phone is jeremiah wilson who was at the chiefs parade today with his 7-year-old daughter when the shooting happened. thank you so much, jeremiah, for being with us. tell us why you were there, the day you were anticipating and what it is that you saw. >> caller: yeah, we got there last night, checked into the hotel and everything else. i was surprising my daughter with the parade today because we're from nebraska and it's quite a distance, you know? so we got there last night so we could rest and stuff before the parade. got there about 7:30, 8:00 to

secure our spots. sorry. >> take your time. >> caller: so we met another really nice family down there. they had some kids that my daughter was able to play with. my daughter, she's autistic so she -- she can be hard to understand for some kids, but these kids were really accepting of her. and we were waiting for the parade -- for the parade to happen. it was a great day. it was a great day. started off really good. was around some wonderful people, some other chiefs fans. it was good. then we made our way down to, what is that, union station or union hall?

>> uh-huh. >> caller: after the parade because we were at the very beginning, like off sixth and grand. took us a while to get down to union station, so we were kind of off to the left in the middle part once we got there because parks was a pain. i'm not going to tell you how many people were there. it was just an unbelievable -- unbelievable amount of people. and towards the end there they were wrapping things up, and then i just heard what sounded like pops. and my daughter was yelling, fireworks! fireworks! i was like, no, those didn't sound like fireworks, it sounded like two different guns is what i figured at this point. i just grab her and i run.

and we -- we -- we just ran, ran up the hill towards the car using some other cars just kind of peek and duck and make sure everything was okay. i saw law enforcement agencies just -- there's so many different uniforms flying down towards the station and by it and everything else. and just blue lights and red lights and gunshots. i didn't -- i didn't -- i didn't wait. i wish i would have. i'm not the hero type, but i'd be the one to take a bullet for anyone else, but i definitely didn't want my daughter in danger so it was -- it was scary. >> you were a hero to your little girl. what you were doing, that peeking and that ducking when you were looking back on the scene, we heard earlier during a

briefing from police -- from the chief of police that there was some belief that bystanders, that fans had actually been part of the effort that take down one of the shooters. i'm curious, did you see any of that commotion, any of that activity? >> i saw so many people in so many different directions that i almost lost direction. because when you're running uphill, because there's a hill there, too, when you're running uphill, your head is down. i'm carrying a 60, 70 pound child. i didn't really get much to see down because i would assume that that would have happened to the left or right of us because that's where they would have ran because they didn't run by us because law enforcement agencies were going the other way. >> you know, jerimiah, i have two little girls, they are four and they are seven. they do active shooter drills in

school once a month. >> yes. >> it is something that we as american parents have come to accept as a part of our reality, and yet here you are at what was supposed to be a very different setting, a celebration parade with your little girl, and you experienced what no one ever wants to experience in this country. how is your little girl right now? how are you talking to her about what it is that happened today? >> caller: you know, she -- she doesn't really under -- she doesn't quite understand the gravity. i'm thankful that she doesn't understand some of the stupid things that people do. sometimes i regret that she can't, but under these circumstances and this situation, i'm actually glad that she doesn't quite understand the magnitude of what happened today. >> i am so sorry for what has

transpired today and i appreciate the fact that on today, of all days, you have taken the time to share with us to be our eyes and our ears on the ground. jerimiah wilson. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to bring in tom winter. tom, i want to talk about something that claire brought us, which was additional information which i'm wondering if your reporting has matched about the nature of the weapons that were used here. >> reporter: yeah, we reported an hour ago, based on the preliminary, subject to change, of course, as information is gathered and more witnesses are spoken to, obviously there were a ton of witnesses given the fact this happened in such a crowded space, leaving a public celebration. alecia, every indication is this is an event that is criminal in nature. what i mean by that, there's some sort of dispute, altercation, whether or not they knew each other prior to today's celebration, whether this is

something that developed during the course of it. this is being looked at as a criminal act versus terrorism or a hate crime. now i know folks are going to look at, this look at this scene, listen to the interview you just had and say how could this not be terrorism because what a horrible incident for anybody to go through, let alone for the one person who were injured or one person killed, i understand that, but from a definition standpointer or rimp is somebody using an ideology or espousing an ideology and committing acts of violence on behalf of that violence to further political purpose and point. basically, we don't see that here. we don't see this community was targeted for any sort of hate reason or political tendency or any leaning. this is some sort of dispute between individuals and that's

what law enforcement is focusing on. though chief stacy graves reported. the 15 that were injured, we see things like this, people hear shots fired, the interview laid it all out there, the fact that people in this country now know just to run, which is what law enforcement ask people to do when they hear somebody firing in an environment, run, get out of there, before thinking about hiding. and in the course of that obviously individuals can get injured because it becomes almost like a type of a stampede. that's the other dangerous aspect of this. the right now police are trying to determine how many of those injured are injured as a result of gunfire versus maybe trying to leave that scene and suffering injuries as a result. obviously a difficult day there for kansas city and a day that had been -- started out with really a tremendous celebration of their football team in that town. >> tom, to the point be about this being fluid and ongoing. just to underscore. you do not have the same

reporting on the nature of these weapons? >> reporter: i do not at this stage. information i have is a little bit conflicted. obviously claire has quite a tie to that community and so i'm not here disputing anything that she is saying, but i just don't have the same information at this point. >> all right. nbc's tom nichols -- tom winters. ask you to stand with me. we are going to take a quick break. more of this breaking news when we return. an fix anything. yep, tough day at work, nice cruise will sort you right out. when i'm riding, i'm not even thinking about my painful cavity. well, you shouldn't ignore that. and every time i get stressed about having to pay my bills, i just hop on the bike, man. oh, come on, man, you got to pay your bills. you don't have to worry about anything when you're protected by america's number-one motorcycle insurer. well, you definitely do. those things aren't related, so... ah, yee! oh, that is a vibrating pain.

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and this is a day that a lot of people look forward to. something they remember for a

lifetime, and what they shouldn't have to remember is the threat of gun violence maring a day like this injuring them and their families. this morning i was thinking of bringing my child, as many people in kansas city did, and i don't want us to have to in our country for every big event think about a concern of being shot. >> our coverage of the ongoing coverage of the shooting at the super bowl parade for the kansas city chiefs. cedric, my question for you, understanding we still do not know the details of the weapons that were used here but we do know about the nature of gun laws in missouri, how difficult is it to be effective as a law enforcement official in an open carry state? >> well, it certainly does have its challenges. we all respect the first

amendment right to americans across the country, but at the same time there are challenges associated with that. and as you can see from the day and the previous incidents that seem to happen so frequently across this country, this is continuing to be an emerging issue that has to be addressed. it puts communities at risk, police at risk because we have such a large abundance of weapons out there on the street today. in addition to that, it doesn't matter if it was a small caliber weapon or a long rifle as far as i'm concerned. what i'm more concerned about is the fact that once that trigger is pulled, someone is going to be severely injured, someone is going to lose their life, a community is going to be traumatized as we just witnessed from your citizen that talked about his experience trying to protect his children. and this is just an ongoing situation that somehow beyond

this shooting today, beyond those being identified and brought into custody for bringing in -- for bringing this mayhem to this wonderful city, we still going to have to have these real conversations because we're going to continue, unfortunately, sadly to see these types of events when we have that number of weapons that are out on american streets. we can make the argument we have to be careful to get these people. i don't quite know who get these weapons. i don't quite know how you do that when you have 300 million people in this country. and one day somebody could be very much sane and the next day something may have happened, occurred in their life that relapsed them into a place of violence or there are gangs that we know act out without warning. we know there are a number of different ideologies that people will feel will make it all

right. kansas city is a great community, a great american city and they will recover from this. i think their recovery from it will take the support not only of their community but all of us across this country. this is a horrible tragedy. it put so many people at risk during such a wonderful celebration where it brought people together in a time in this nation where we are so divided but i would hope that what happened here today strengthens this community and strengthens us as a nation as well as we move forward. >> cedric alexander, stay with me. i want to bring in our correspondent. frank, this is fluid, ongoing, this is developing. are i want to circle back to a question i asked you about an hour and a half ago, which is to pull back the curtain for us and give us a sense now at this

point in the investigation, the conversation that law enforcement is having with these two suspects, the information they are trying to gather, the questions that still may be unanswered. >> right. this is a story of simultaneous investigative efforts going on right now. you've got the two subjects. they may or may not be cooperating. they would have been read their miranda rights. they have to decide whether they would talk or not or request a lawyer or not. if err this' talking, the questions of course being asked are what happened? why? give us the details chapter and verse. at the same time, by now security camera footage is being grabbed from throughout the parade route, from throughout the city if necessary, and there's an attempt going to be made to track these two individuals, and any other

related individuals, to determine where they are, when hostilities might have begun, was there a fight, push, shove. are people wearing gang colors? is that who showed up today? all of that is going to be done. thirdly, witness interviews. lots of them. you can imagine how many witness interviews there might have to be done here, and with that you often see agencies paired up together so that everybody's hearing a witness statement pretty much at the same time. maybe it's a state officer with a city officer. maybe it's an fbi agent with a police detective just to get that done. i'll remind you that in many cities today there are -- there's connectivity between the security cameras at businesses and even residences and the police and so it might be very easy for the police to set their time frame and request digitally all of the downloaded security videos. if not, they'll be getting

search warrants. so claire's old shop at the d.a.'s office, state's attorney's office absolutely already involved likely in writing search warrants maybe for these two subjects' residences, maybe for storage lockers, maybe for their vehicles and where are the vehicles? so you can imagine this kind of environment going on. there's going to be a joint operation center. there's also going to have to be a reunification center of sorts. you can imagine the chaos when tens of thousands of people are running out of an area and dropping their phones, families being separated. parents not knowing where their kids are. all of that needs to be rectified and there is likely an effort going on with that as well. >> there was a detail that stood out to me, frank, from the briefing we got from police chief stacie graves about 45 minutes ago. that was we had originally been reporting to the best of our knowledge that there were 10 potential victims. she expanded that number to be

10 to 15. why would that still be in question? >> well, in a mass casualty event you are often calling upon multiple hospitals in a city environment and some will be sent here, to a trauma center, some will be sent there for a lesser injury, and so that might -- that number is not yet coordinated likely, and then you've got this gray area. well, someone's been injured but it was part of their fleeing the scene, not necessarily because they were shot. so you have that lack of clarity that happens in these early hours. >> frank, another detail that stood out to me from that briefing. you had mayor quinton lucas talking about the fact that he had received a call from the white house offering any and all assistance. in a scenario like this, what -- what are the resources? what is the assistance that a mayor like quinton lucas is looking to the white house and

to federal agencies for? >> yeah. so, you know, in the event that the needs of the investigative agents surpass both state, local, county capabilities, which by the way is unlikely in a case like kansas city which has a sophisticated large police department, but so many things the federal government can offer in this case would be state of the art crime scene re-creation, bullet trajectory, grabbing all the security camera footage and putting it altogether to create a time line of where the subjects were at any given moment. i mean, you could theoretically track them from their home via camera all the way to the shooting event. same goes for their devices, their cell phones, all of that. fbi very adept in grabbing that very quickly in terms of the nearest cell tower, going to the cell carriers once their phones are identified.

it would be nice if the two subjects have their phones on them. getting into the phones. all of that, the fbi does every single day. those resources would be offered as well. >> let's bring back former u.s. senator claire mccaskill. claire, it is lost on no one today is six years to the day of the mass shooting in parkland, which among other things activated a group of young people who have been incredibly effective in their calls for change. the fact though that it is six years since that horrifying tragedy and we find ourselves at yet another public event with yet another shooting, it reminds us how much work there is, claire, yet to be done. >> yeah. and, you know, i think people need to realize that -- that there -- you do have power. people in this country have power to change this.

it is about not voting for elected officials who think background checks don't matter, who think any age child can carry any kind of gun anywhere they want, who think that having high capacity magazines makes sense for any average american or military weaponry makes sense or bump stocks. you can vote against these people. you can not allow them to hold office by using your votes. i think too often people throw up their hands, oh, there's nothing we can do. there is something you can do. we've watched the nra lose power in front of our eyes. we have watched the polling continue to climb to the point that it is a huge majority of americans that want something to change in terms of our lax gun culture in this country, and today is just another reminder that people need to quit throwing up their hands and get

busy like the kids from parkland have, like so many parents of those innocent children slaughtered in connecticut when i was in the senate in a school. there really -- and you think about the families down in texas, and that horrible shooting. so i really do think people need to quit saying there's nothing we can do because there is something you can do. you can get motivated, you can run for office and you can certainly take the time to figure out the people you're voting for think it's okay to have this kind of acceptance of open carry military weaponry at mass events like we had today in kansas city. >> i'm not sure if you were on with me, claire, when we played the sound of a woman who was at the parade today with her daughter, and part of the story that she shared is that this is not their first active shooter

situation. there was an active shooter situation at her daughter's school. today she said i'm grateful i get to be with my daughter and make sure she's safe. that is the reality of the america we are living in. you can survive one shooting only to be faced with another. sometimes you have to wonder how many people are going to have that experience? how many people are going to escape once only to be faced with it another time before we realize that this problem is not going away? very often we focus, claire, on federal solutions for very good reasons. it is also worth putting an eye towards state legislatures and the decisions that they make that make things like what we saw today a reality. >> yeah. i mean, the missouri legislature is very worried about who's in what bathroom, but they're not worried about who's carrying a military style high capacity magazine weapon into a

playground. and that's really backwards. you know, there's a culture war -- we can talk about culture wars. the culture war we need to be fighting is the culture around guns in this country. there's a reason, alicia, that we have these more than any other country in the world. there's a reason why we have the massive amounts of mass shootings in this country. there are mass shootings, you know, every week. we have so many that it has gotten to the point they don't even get covered. this one is getting covered because of where it happened, the confluence of the nfl and the kansas city chiefs and a massive outpouring of support in the most public of all spaces. >> on a beautiful day. >> many of the mass shootings -- >> on a beautiful day. most mass shootings now are footnotes, they're just footnotes. this is the culture war we ought to fight. this is one worth fighting. i hope people who run for office in the party i belong to get

busy with this culture war. it's a winnable war if we decide to take it to the american people. >> stay with me. we're going to continue this. a shooting a the the super bowl championship parade for the kansas city chiefs. one person is dead, 10 to 15 injured. we're going to squeeze in a quick break. we'll be right back. k. we'll be right back.

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we continue coverage of the shooting in kansas city at the

chiefs super bowl championship parade. police in kansas city set to hold another briefing at 6 p.m. eastern, 5 p.m. central that is coming up at the top of this hour. nbc affiliate kshb spoke to two attendees who say they saw one of the shooters. >> we saw one of the shooters. he had a brown jacket on. >> real young. looked about 16 or 17 years old. they were really young. >> yeah. >> so it was -- it didn't look like it was some type of staging. it looked like it was somebody acting out of control. >> what kind of gun. what kind of firearm? >> didn't see the firearm. >> heard the shots. we got out of there. in the area where the shots went off -- >> we were literally standing there. >> the fact that we got out before then was just a itching mel. >> yeah. yeah. >> let's bring back tom winter. what are your sources telling you about the state of this investigation? >> sure, alecia. a couple of different things going on here.

first and foremost, as it pertains to motive, it is an ongoing investigation. the preliminary investigation out of kansas city according to state, local, federal law enforcement officials we've spoken with is this is not an act of a hate crime, not an act of terrorism. meaning somebody is not espousing some sort of ideological belief and that's why they did what they did here today. every indication we have from here, while terrifying, appears to be an incident between two individuals. still unclear whether they knew each other prior to today's parade or if this has been an ongoing dispute that came out during the course of this celebration, i should say. so that's something we're still waiting to get more information on and specifically what witnesses saw as far as what triggered this event and incident, but it does not appear, and i think it's very clear from the fact that kansas city police are leading this investigation, they are the people that are speaking on this, there's no sort of fbi

lead on this, that it's not going the direction of some sort of terrorism or something large gir than this. that's the first thing. second thing, as far as this investigation goes, you have 800 local, city, state, federal law enforcement officers that are there for this celebration today exactly for these type of events, and i think it underscores the fact that you can have that type of presence and still have events like this that occur. that makes it a real challenge for law enforcement, particularly in a state where individuals are able to carry weapons the way that they are in missouri, but then i always put an asterisk next to that that a criminal doesn't really care about gun laws. there's the whole component of how do we secure these events? are these going to continue to bemarred by these events. that's what we're getting from law enforcement.

this does not appear to be a bigger type of attack or plot but obviously everybody is concerned that these events continue to happen, whether or not we as a society is deal with it is not a question for me to answer, it's a question for all of us and everyone watching. moving on from this and where does this go from here? there's clearly going to be a prosecution. they have those individuals in custody. they are not deceased. it appears to be a state case at this point. the local prosecuting attorney will seek to retain, detain, hold them and the normal criminal process will go on from here. nothing particularly remarkable even though this was obviously such a high profile incident. that's where things are at this point and we continue to make calls to get a little bit more granular detail on how we get to this point today. important to note, the 10 to 15 injured, how many of those were

victims of gunshot wounds versus how many of those may have been injured in the course of people trying to flee and as you hear from people who hear this, folks were moving and getting out of that area. that's what generally is the accepted practice. when you hear these type of gunshots in this type of environment, to be careful but to leave these areas as soon as possible. that's the best thing according to law enforcement and dhs in this country in terms of how to leave a shooting incident like this. hiding is your second best option. it's not a particularly safe one. i've seen what an ar-15 and even large caliber pistol fire round will do to office furniture, to wood, things like that. hiding is not the best thing to do but it is your next best avenue to take. the last one is to fight. that's a bit of a question here, alecia, because law enforcement

is trying to track down whether or not some of the fans helped to assist in the arrest here. that's something we'll continue to watch as well. as far as this particular event, it appears to be contained and law enforcement feels like there's no ongoing threat to that community which is, of course, a good thing. >> we are waiting to hear from law enforcement at 6 p.m. eastern. tom winter, i'm going to free you up to go collect the granular details for us. frank figuisi, i asked you earlier, i'm going to ask you again, we learned a few pieces of information from the mayor, from the chief of police. given the amount of time that has elapsed, the big pieces of information you are going to be looking for as we go to this next briefing at the top of the hour. >> yeah. i am still looking to hear more definitive evidence of we've got

our subject in custody or subjects, plural, and there is no continuing threat. i think this is all what we're hearing and it sounds like that, alecia, but it would be reassuring to hear that definitively from a police official. the other thing is we heard from the witnesses that you just talked with from the scene that they thought the shooter looked extremely young. i believe they said 17 or 18. that's just on appearances, of course, but that layers in a whole other issue which is young people possessing these kinds of weapons doing this much harm, destroying their own lives and others because they possess a weapon that they shouldn't be possessing. if, indeed, it's true that the witness perception is accurate, maybe we're dealing with a juvenile at 17 or younger, that does shift the laws, the

juvenile laws. we couldn't have any better analyst on this than claire mccaskill who's not only from there but prosecuted there. so that will raise that issue again. lastly, alicia, this whole thing raises from a law enforcement perspective whether or not securing an open air event is even consistent with security measures today, meaning can we do that anymore with everybody possessing a weapon. >> claire mccaskill, when we talk about a future prosecution of this case, some of the details, some of the pieces of evidence and information that are unfolding right now, talk to me about the interplay, what investigators know they are whih it will come to bear later in a prosecution. >> well, the homicide unit at the police department is probably the lead here of kc pd.

very professional. highly experienced. highly trained. i think, and i have huge respect for frank and all of my former colleagues in federal law enforcement, but understand the vast majority of homicides that are prosecuted in this country are prosecuted by state prosecutors. the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction over the vast majority of homicides. i would gather, i would probably guess somewhere between 90 to 96% of all the shootings in this country are prosecuted at the state level. so you've got a homicide unit that's highly trained. you have homicide prosecutors. and believe me, as somebody who was one and somebody who trained people to be homicide prosecutors, everyone in the prosecutor's office wants to rise to the level of being able to handle homicides. you have your most experienced, your most skilled prosecutors, all are trying to be part of the

group of prosecutors who handle these cases. so you've got a lot of experience. the prosecutors are really only involved right now to the extent that they're getting briefed and they are applying for search warrants if necessary that frank talked about earlier. they may go over and watch some of the interviews, you know, in a room where they can see how the interviews are going with the suspects, if the suspects are talking. the suspects may have not talked and may have asked for lawyers, and so that may not even be going on. i've got no indication these are juveniles. i reached out to try to find out. i will certainly let you know and our viewers know if i get any information about that. but i have not received that information, and that's a whole different process. it is a juvenile. it's a whole different process in terms of how they can be interviewed and who has to be present when they're interviewed, and then there's a

whole issue of whether or not they should be tried as an adult, even if they're a juvenile. that typically only happens in the most serious cases like homicides, and/or juveniles who have records, who have shown that they have committed other violent acts, other serious crimes as juveniles. but i've got no indication they're juveniles at this point. most of the work right now is being done, not by the guy you see on the screen right now, the missouri highway patrolman, but rather by the people that you see are right there, a member of the kansas city police department, and frankly, most of the people that are doing a lot of the scrambling right now that are people that wear suits and ties to work that are detectives. >> stay with me. just in from the children's mercy hospital in the kansas city area, they are treating 12 patients, 11 of the patients are children. at least eight of them have gunshot wounds. frank, square that with what we

heard from the police department earlier today at about 4:30. >> yeah, i mean, i heard a reporter ask that specific question, whether she was aware of children as victims here, and she said she did not know about that yet. it's simply a reflection of the chaos of the early hours and minutes of an event like this. and i'm sure we'll hear the next press conference, a more detailed accounting of who's at what hospital, and how many of the children are involved. and, look, that raises another question as to why. i mean, was there a school event, what age children are we talking about? were there school sponsoring buses. were they wrong place, wrong time in terms of getting to their vehicle, van or bus? this is horrible. it's just horrible.

and with regard to two guys possibly, hypothetically having a beef with each other, and then shooting it out and injuring, shooting each children at least, it really defies logic and i assure you, when detectives interview these people, if they get a chance to, and if they don't invoke their miranda rights, it won't make any sense. i can assure you, if they talk, they're going to tell the detectives some ridiculous story about being upset about something, and none of it is going to be worth shooting eight children over. >> claire, local area hospital, same there, treating eight children with gunshot wounds, eight children, help me make sense of that. >> yeah, this is a fine children's hospital, a level one trauma, they are accustomed to dealing with children, unfortunately, because of the

amount of guns that are in our communities, this will not be the first time they have seen children that are victims of gunshot wounds at children's mercy, and their sister hospital that is just a block away, which is now university hospital, when i was there, it was called truman, and i slipped earlier and called it truman, it's now called university hospital, also a trauma one, a level one trauma center. they are, i'm sure, right now, and i'm kind of surprised we haven't heard more official word from any other hospital besides children's mercy. hopefully we will soon or hopefully we'll get an update, a formal update from the police department, from the spokesman of the police department about the number of actual victims of this tragedy. but i'm with frank, there must have been a group of children that must have been together for some reason in the area of this fight breaking out with gunfire, and that is the reason you're seeing a high number of children

that are being treated at children's. >> cedric alexander earlier claire mccaskill referenced the horror we witnessed in newtown, connecticut, my north star on all of this is who lost her daughter on sandy hook, when sandy hook happened, a whole lot of people wanted resilience performances from the family. we should have never asked for that then, and should never demand this now. the only things we should be demanding are better policies to keep us safer and resources for all of those impacted because we have neither of those my friends, neither. gun violence ravages the spirit, and bankrupts hope. talk to me about the resources that families are going to need to get through just this immediate crisis. >> well, one of the things that's going to be critically important right now is the support from other family members, from friends, from

community at large. i'm quite sure there and kansas city that city government, elected officials and other civic organizations and whatever throughout that community is going to provide whatever support that they can. there's going to be a great deal of mental health counseling that is going to be needed immediately, and in the short-term. but i think one of the most important things and points this out, anytime we go through a traumatic event, having support groups around us, who are there to listen to us, to hear us, and to be empathetic to what we're going through is going to make a great deal of difference in how people subsequently recover from these type of traumatic events, and you have a whole community there now that has been traumatized. many people at their scene,

running for their lives. law enforcement personnel, over 800 of them are responding to gunfire. and of course our medical teams, who are having to provide medical care in situations in which they are training for, but nevertheless, it has an impact upon all of us as human beings. so one of the greatest things that can happen support the community at large supporting itself and the rest of this country supporting our sister city there in kansas city, missouri, as well. >> frank, as you know, we are just moments away from the next briefing from the police department in kansas city. talk about the importance of them clarifying these new details that are beginning to emerge. >> yeah, look, in my training, and experience with these kinds of press conferences, you've got to strike a balance between the public demand for information,

and you need to put out what you have with the possibility of getting it wrong. and you can't get it wrong. so you want to say, i don't know. if you don't know the answer, and if you're going to put something out about numbers, and the chief has been very careful here. i don't want to imply she hasn't been, but on the next one, the numbers should be accurate, as accurate as they can be. and we should get a good public update on any continuing threat. i don't think there is one. but the public's going to demand to know and this is a national spotlight, and i'm confident you'll get it right. >> frank figliuzzi, tom winter, claire mccaskill, cedric alexander, thank you all so much for being with us during this breaking coverage. again, one person is dead, 10 to 15 are injured, including at least 11 children in a shooting at the super bowl championship parade for the kansas city chiefs. the next news conference in

kansas city is just moments