Dont know the path or exactly how the shootings occurred. Where were you when you got that phone call and your heart had to have dropped . So today has baeen we last our footage there. That was the superintendent going through and taking questions there for a few minutes. Let me go down to our nbc correspondent who has been on the scene for the last few hour, Tammy Leitner. What codo you feel like you kno factually and what are some of the Unanswered Questions youre trying to get answers to . Reporter first i want to take you through what weve been seeing the last hour and a half on the scene here. A very emotional scene. When we first pulled up, there were parents lining the street for literally blocks. Parents standing outside of their cars, standing on the side of the road, waiting for answers. Waiting for their children. Literally standing there, some in tears, some hugging each other, others desperate just to hear from their kids. And as the minutes and hours started going on, we started seeing reunions. Police officers started walking kids down this road. Were about one block from the school, the school is one block behind me. Police officers started walking kids down this road. There was only a couple of them, but they started reuniting these parents and it was emotional. You could tell the kids had been through a lot. For the most part, the rest of the kids are reuniting with the paths parents at a hotel. Some havent even spoken to their kids. These kids have been locked down inside the school and then the
police as you know, they go and they talk to the kids, they debrief them, they want to find out as much information as they can while it is still fresh. So many of the parents that weve been speaking to out here at the scene, at the school that have come here for answers, that have come here to find their kids still had not scene them yet, still had not given them a hug. We know there are about 20 kids that have been injured. Parents still searching for answers. There is still an active scene out here. I can tell you there is an elemen Elementary School that had still been on lockdown during the news conference. Parents wanting to even though were okay. So a lot of emotion as police still try to work the scene and piece everything together. So we know 20 injured, we know of one dead. Do we know what kind of weapons were used by the shooter . There seemed to be some speculation that he had a connection to the school. What can we say yet . At this point, it is a lot of speculation. I can tell you it sounded like similar automatic rifle shots. From what were hearing from the description from the kids, we know that school was about ready to be let out when Gunfire Rang Out and that was when school immediately went into lockdown and the kids immediately took cover from the parents that weve spoken to here, that actually got Text Messages from their kids, this is how it went down. Some of the kids texted their parents, one mother said she got a text from her son who was in the office with three other students and he said mommy, what do i do. There is gunfire. And she said barricade yourself right where you are. And so him and three other students barricaded themselves. We know there were about 20 kids at that point barricaded inside the school. And standard protocol is they barricade themselves with the teachers until the Police Actually come and tell them it is safe to walk outside. So at this point they are still
trying to piece all these things together. We talked to one parent who was on the phone with her son speaking to her 14yearold son, a freshman, for the first time and he told police that on social media he had seen something that he thought was important enough to tell them and it said today was purge day. Whether that had anything to do with the School Shooting or not, he thought it was important enough to tell police, but that is obviously something they will be looking at. Tammy leitner on the scene for us. Well probably be checking back in. Thanks very much. Let me turn to Jim Cavanaugh, terrorism analyst on these things for us. And i feel like we always meet like this. This is the 18th School Shooting of 2018. This is the first oneity in two. But weve been averaging about one a week. It feels as if the stories are the same, the setting changes, the number of victims change. But the story is the same. Yeah, the story is the same. Well find out he is a student or former student or some connection to the school. He is likely choking on an empty grudge. He wants to get back at the school for some reason. That can be evaluated by the psychologist for sure. But as a general giant rubric, a revenge on the school. The reports that he might have pulled The Fire Alarm to get people in the hallway and tammys report there, that is the first ive heard that he might have had a long gun, if he is 18, he can walk into any gun store in florida, any gun store in america and buy a long gun, tactical rifle, load it up, and go seek his revenge. And that may be why this is turning out to be so devastating whenever you place a long gun in there, the wounds are much more devastating. Not that a hand gun cant wreak
havoc. Virginia tech is one. It can cause many deaths. But the rifles are so much more devastating. It just makes it all the more horrific sometimes when the shooter is not womell trained. If youre in a Recall Whallway rifle, it will be a bad day. So what can we do . We can do many things, but as a nation, we seem frozen and we dont seem to be doing those things. It feels like paralysis. I guess let me go from the schools point of view. Schools have tried to change things, they now have drills, my kids go through drills in their schools. This is a common thing now to go through these drills. You have School Counselors are trying to be better aware. Youve got backpacks searching issues that are taking place. But none of these have changed anything in 30 years. No, they really havent. Well, they changed . Things. What we do have to realize that a lot of the facts that the
children and even people in businesses will barricade, i mean there is a lot of people and probably people watching but oddly does that feel like progress just because were better capable of protecting ourselves from a lone gunman . We still havent figured out how to deal with the lone gunman issue. I agree with you there. I do think people that are better at some tactics and barricading and fleeing and fighting them off, but, no, we still shouldnt be having this society. One of the things is people have no processes to cope. And this is children and adults. They just have no skills. If they get fired, then instead of looking for another job and picking themselves up, they want to go massacre everybody at the place where they were employed. Or the school that might have done them wrong. And were not as a society maybe realizing it. That is something that we should teach from a young age. You will get knocked down. You have to get back up. And chuck, as you and i and so
many people we know, we admire our parents, our Glabd Parerand who went through wars and holocausts and got knocked down and got back up. And i dont know if everybody sees that anymore, as if that is what life will throw at you. So the first time they get a curve ball, they failed a class, all of a sudden lets get a gun and shoot everybody. It happens time and time again. We can do better. Simple things. Maybe not in this case. This case we dont know. Maybe this person bought the rifle on his own at a store or got it on the street. We dont know yet. But in many School Shootings, if all the parents would just secure their guns at home, we could reduce the number. That is just one thing. Doesnt take a law. Doesnt take anything. Just takes responsibility to do it. So there is some things we can change Teaching Coping Mechanisms certainly better, seeing the signs. This guy will have what we call leakage in the police business. There will be some leakage about what he was going to do. And well see how that was picked up, was it missed, was it picked up. And again im always interested to see was he walking across the parking lot with a long gun expos exposed. Time and again we see that. Im curious that the fbi has prided itself on for decades of trying to better profile all the time. And to profile a killer on their second or third attempt is one thing. But trying to profile somebody before they ever act is something else. But it does seem as if there is something high School Counselors is there something you think at some point the fbi needs to work with schools in how to identify people who may need help early on to make sure they dont fall through the cracks . Well, i think every effort is good on that. The Secret Service tried to do a big study about it, Many Mental Health professionals do. School counselors do. Youre just not going to catch every single person. But i do think we can reduce the number. Usually people are feeling they were done wrong. They cant get ahead. People are treating them mistreating them. They are bullied. They couldnt make it. Look at the Virginia Tech shooter. Everybody has a grudge. When they start getting that grudge, that is when need to be talked to and counseled and say hey, life has those things. You got to come back. And we need to start from a young age teaching all of us that life is not going to be just a big smooth sail. You will get fired, you might get hurt, you could could be injured, you could an veteran. So many things that will happen to you. Dont expect about it will be this easy ride and dont take revenge on everybody when it does. Let me bring in sean henry, he is a former Executive Assistant Director of the fbi, National Security analyst. I know youve probably been hearing jim and i go through this. But give me your initial reaction of what youre seeing and sort of id like to go Bigger Picture here. This is the 18th School Shooting just in 2018. And today is valentines day. Yeah, you know, watching the scene and watching the evacuation of school, understanding the Anxioguish Th parents are going through and the Law Enforcement response the way they do their response looking for the shooter, this is something that weve seen play out too many times in the last few years. And listening to jim, i think there are a lot of social issues. Im a former Law Enforcement office and you typically come on air here to talk about what is happening strategically in terms of Law Enforcement. But in this case, listening to jim, there certainly are social
issues here. As a nation we have to come together and recognize that there has to be a response and it has to be a comprehensive response. I dont pretends to have the answers. Im a gun owner. Ive had guns my whole life. Im responsible and authorized to have one. But i think we have to look at the current laws in place. And while i believe in protecting the Second Amendment, im a believer in that, but we have to look at how guns get into the hands of certain people. And im saying all that high level, we dont know the facts and circumstances here. Totally get it. Let me put this way. There is always individual facts. But i feel like people sometimes use we dont know everything yet to avoid tougher conversations. But let me ask you this. A superintendent calls you up and says you are in charge of preparing us for this. You are in charge of preparing
our school system. There is tactical preparations and there is profiling preparations. What do you do . Youre saying in preparation for a School Shooting in advance of a School Shooting . Yes, trying to sort of both help a high school identified troubled students and both on a tactical front and the profiling front. On the profiles front, i dont think it is much different than the way we profile from a terrorist perspective. Ive talked on the air here many times about how we need to have members of the Community Involved with Law Enforcement reporting unusual behavior, innocuous behavior, people who make threats and sometimes people overlook them. They dont pay it much attention, they dont take it seriously. And i think that while Law Enforcement cannot be expected to police every family, every school, every church, that is not going to happen, it is not their role, but working in coordinate with the community, they need to be able to respond
to issues that are brought to their attention. And there needs to be that close relationship between the organizations. It is the same thing with these types of shootings. Jim talked about we have a kid here who looks like may have attended this particular school at some point or another. What happened there in the background, what may have happened in the past few weeks that caused him to do this. Did he say something. Did he make a comments. Was he posting on social media. And did somebody see something that sthee have brought to somebodys attention. So Law Enforcement cannot police every single facility in the country. They dont have the capacity or capability, but they have to work hand in hand with the community. I appreciate that. Lets me bring in senator bill nelson, senior senator from the state of florida. And senator, appreciate you coming on. Tell me what new information you have about i think the last time
we talked to you, you had been told there could be a number of fatalities. Thankfully so far we only know of one and we hope that that is where the total ends. What more do you know, sir . Well, one is too many. But i understand from the superintendent of education or the superintendent of the schools that there are more than one and that is why i characterized it an hour ago when i spoke to your folks that it was a number of fatalities. And of course that is the same thing with injuries. Youve heard now and we now know that it appears that the suspects in custody. Go a little bit Bigger Picture here for me. 18th School Shooting this year. I keep saying that because its only the middle of february. Right. Chuck, i love your program, so why do i have to come on your program in a tragedy like this . It is a bad day. And South Florida is hurting. And here we go again about that and every time as you say one of these Mass Shootings, we say enough is enough, and then it happens again. Now, the fbi will lead the investigation and well find out what was the caliber of weapon, what was was it legal, was the shooter legal to purchase it. And we go through all of this and then we try to do something in the congress and we take even Dianne Feinsteins bill which is that if you are on the terrorist watch list, you cant buy a gun. And we cant get that passed. So you see the difficulty when you say, well, what are we going to do about these Mass Shootings. Do you have an idea of how to
break through the paralysis on the politics of it . The state of florida is wellknown for having perhaps the most Pro Gun Rights Owners Laws in the country out side of texas. The culture you may not be able to change on that. But how would you break through that paralysis on this issue . Keep trying. And of course you can hear the emotion in my voice. And i think there are a lot of other people out there that if these things continue like they have in the past, almost with regularity, and remember there was a shooting just a year ago in the same county, Broward County, at the ft. Lauderdale airport. And of course what happened in las vegas and go on and on and on all the way back and before sandy hook. And so how do you break through . At some point the American People are going to say in fact
weve had enough and they are going to demand of their members of congressnd State Legislators that things start changing. Let me ask you this. What would you do within the schools . What if School Superintendents told you the only answer in their Minds Gun Restrictions or is there more Mental Health do they need more Mental Health capacity, more counselors . What could wie do on the school front . The answer to that question is yes. But the answer to the implied second question is we cant make schools and armed camp. You know how our whole society has changed. It used to be that i never worried about security. And now when we go into a public meeting, we have to be concerned that we have security there. Same thing in schools. But you cant put an armed camp around schools. You can use some common sense n enacting laws. And you are talking to a Florida Country Boy who grew up on a ranch who has always had guns and who still hunts with my son. Senator bill nelson, i know well probably talking to you more about this incident over the next couple of hours. I appreciate you giving us your time on this and well let you go. I know you want to make more calls. Thanks. Speaking of members of congress, lets me bring on ted deutsche, he represents this part of Broward County. Congressman, what have you learned since what more new information do you have that you can share . Well, thanks for having me first of all. I