seeing the flags at half-mast, seeing the outpouring of love, i think that all helps the journalists and families get back on their feet. >> i want to talk to you about tomorrow because it is a day of celebration for this country, a day that honors america. i know there will be parades throughout this country including in your beautiful city of annapolis. and can you just tell me how you all will be honoring these journalists and how all of us should be mindful? >> we would like as many people to come out as possible just to show kashing for t incaring for. it is every city's worst nightmare is what happened to us. but what is incredible, these journalists went back to work pretty immediately, got a paper out the next day. i mean showed tremendous courage to do that after what happened
bear with me as i take my glasses off. they get dark and i want you to be able to see me. i probably can't see you too well. so bear with me. i'll start today by offering the sincere condolences of the anne arundel county police department to the "capital gazette sta" st. much like police, local newspapers become family and their family suffered unhonorable tragedy yesterday. most of the woks that work at the "capital gazette" work with us, daily, weekly, we know them. it is not only a loss for them. it is a loss for the anne arundel county police department and truly it is a loss for the city of annapolis and anne arundel county. our hearts go out to them. we'll be thinking of them as we move forward and we wish them the best as they try to deal with their grief. i also have to thank a bunch of people, so i'll ask you to bear
they get dark and i want you guys to be able to see me but i probably can't see you too well so i'll ask you to bear with me. i want to start today by offering the sincere condolences of the anne arundel county police department to the "capital gazette" staff. much like police, local newspapers become a family. and their family suffered a tragedy yesterday. most of the folks that work at the "capital gazette" work with us daily, weekly and we know them. it's not only a loss for them. i want them to know that. it's a loss for the anne arundel county police department and it's a loss for the city of annapolis and anne arundel county. so our hearts go out to them. we'll be thinking of them as we move forward and we wish them the best as they try to deal with their grief. i also have to thank a bunch of people. bear with me on this.
totally visible to a person or shooter. >> they were quite vulnerable. >> totally vulnerable because there was no belief of any need for any security which reflects on the town, the city of annapolis, and the paper and its desire to be. >> reporter: terry smith, contributing columnist with capital gazette talking about what the paper means to the community. this is a paper that's been around literally more than 300 years. it has ties to one of the oldest papers in the united states of america. there was a tweet, i'm sure you saw from one of the reporters as all of this was going down, in the aftermath of this going down, the reporter tweeting out we are putting out a damn paper tomorrow, and low and behold they did. the cover of the capital gazette here. they put the paper out and vow to put another one out tomorrow
families and i went to thank the law enforcement professionals who responded, our emergency response team was -- did an incredible job. they're still doing the job right now and responded within 60 seconds, i want do give serious praise to anne arundel county and the city of annapolis for their response and we were here with the state agencies to back them up. it's a tragic situation. we can't -- we don't have all the information yet an we can't give all the information yet. it's an investigation but we have had several fatalities and several people that are in the hospital and we'll just leave it to the professionals to continue their investigation. >> lieutenant, i know you said it's early but can you talk -- is it more than two? can you tell us -- at least the kind of numbers you know of? >> i'll introduce or acting
shooter had any connection to this newsroom, the newspaper. at this point, these are all questions that we have that the police hopefully will be able to answer in a little while when they do a briefing. >> we are expecting a briefing any minute now. i want to bring in susan o'brien, the communications officer for the city of annapolis. thank you for joining us. i'm so sorry it's under these circumstances. what can you tell us about how the city of annapolis is responding to this situation? >> it's important that the city of annapolis is supporting anne arundel county. it is in annapolis outside the city limits but the mayor gavin buckley on the scene with the governor larry hogan. this is a newspaper we deal with every day in the city of annapolis and older newspaper in the country and our hearts and thoughts are with the families. >> and you said that the mayor of annapolis is on location with
families. i want to thank the law enforcement professionals that responded. our emergency response team did an incredible job. the fact that they responded in 60 seconds, i want to give serious praise to anne arundle county and the city of annapolis. we were here to back them up. we have federal agencies. it's a tragic situation. we don't have all the information yet. we can't give all the information yet because it's an active crime scene and investigation. we have had several fatalities and several people in the hospital. we'll leave to it the professionals to conduct the investigation. >> [question inaudible] >> i'm going to take this opportunity to introduce the chief. he will answer some questions.
other first responders have said that if we can get you to a level one trauma center with a bullet wound, if we can get you there alive, your chances of surviving are really quiet good. so if that's the case here, that is going to be the effort. again, the capital gazette communications company publishing "the capital", a daily newspaper that serves annapolis, the greater anne arundle county and also publishes the maryland gazette twice a week for residents in smaller communities. this location is the main headquarters of the place. annapolis police have announced the incident on best gate road outside the city of annapolis. i'm now told by our informations specialist here that atf is responding. you can see people inside the building. very common from the early days
i want to thank the law enforcement professionals who responded, our emergency response team. they did an incredible job. they're still doing the job now. the fact they responded in 60 seconds, i want to give serious praise to anne arundel county and the city of annapolis for their response. and we were here with the state agencies to back them up. we have federal agencies. it's a tragic situation. we can't -- we don't have all the information yet and we can't give all the information yet because it's an active crime scene and investigation. but we have had several fatalities and several people that are in the hospital. we'll just leave it to the professionals to continue with their ongoing investigation. >> lieutenant, i know you said it's early. can you tell us the number of fatalities in any way? is it more than two or under -- can you tell us at least any kind of numbers that you know now? >> i'm going to take this opportunity to introduce our acting chief bill cr anf.
minutes. before then, let's find out what hans has. >> we spoke to one witness that said she heard several loud blasts. i asked her could it come from the a shotgun. she didn't quite know but she said the sheriff and the police were there within two minutes and evacuated everyone and had two groups of 50 or 60 people that were inside that building. the witness we spoke to was just above the building. she described the office space where the newspaper is as holding 20, 25 people. that's the top end of how many people potentially could have been inside here. as you can see, as far as the eye can see we are looking at police presence. it is a not just anne arundel county it's the stipulate of annapolis. there are hundreds of police cars. two helicopters overhead. there is a massive police response here. it's indication of how well this part of the country is prepared for it. it also gives you an indication the speed with which some of the casualties could have been potentially conveyed to a hospital. when we talk about the force,