Deadly washingtdead deadly las vegas shooting. With matt lauer and savannah guthrie, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to a special edition of today on a man morning. We almost feel like we should start by apologizing for what youre going to be hearing. In some parts of the country we join you live, a little early this morning, as we coffer what is the deadliest mass shooting in history. When you hear the toll, it take yours breath away. More than 50 People Killed. This is the very information. It happened after 1 00 eastern time, after 10 00 in las vegas. The gunman on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay resort and casino. Was shooting into the you at the root harvest festival. The sheriff just gave us the latest figures. At least 50 people have been killed. More than 200 others wounded. Some of them, many of them, were told, in Critical Condition and many in surgery this hour. We can tell you that the shooter who was shot and killed by the police, is identified as Stephen Paddock. 64 years old, from mesquite, nevada. In response to the shooting, authorities shut down part of the las vegas strip. Said people should stay away, shelter in place. And all planes were grounded at the airport, just adjacent to that shooting scene. All flights in and out of the airport were temporarily halted. This story, as you know, and can imagine, is developing. We have full conch on the shooting and the investigation. We want to begin with nbcs steve patterson. Hes in las vegas. Good morning to you. Reporter we are in a Central Location on the vegas strip. All of the people behind me, in full police uniform, emts, people combing through the scene, especially focusing on that suspects room where he rained down in fire. We spoke to people from that horrific shooting scene and got their tales of survival. This morning, las vegas is on lockdown, after a gunman opened fire at a popular Country Music festival. It happened just moments after Country Music superstar jason aldean took the stage at the rock 91 harvest music festival. Machine gunfire from an automatic weapon, erupting into a crowd of fans. At first, witnesses say they thought it was a fireworks show. When the rapid gunfire continued to spray the crowd. Get down. Get down. Reporter confusion turned to panic. Terrified concertgoers running for their lives. Some laying on top of each other for safety. By some accounts, the bullets raining down for more than an hour. They cut the music. Everyone said drop. And everyone dropped. And everyone said get up and they started to run and stampeding and charging, knocking over grills and fences and trying to get out. And we hid in a bush for like an hour. Reporter police s. W. A. T. Teams tracked the shooter to the mond mandalay bejo tell. We are in fight of the suspects room. We need to pop and see if we get any response from this guy. To see if hes moved in here. The 32nd floor, s. W. A. T. Has explosive breach. Reporter police shot and killed the suspect. Law enforcement sources tell nbc news, the alleged gunman has been identified as 64yearold Stephen Paddock. We believe, were confident but not 100 sure, we have located the female person of interest. So, i want the people to feel confident and calm in that asect. Reporter at this time, 4 00 in the morning here on the las vegas strip, most of it is eerily quiet, as the Police Investigation into the worst mass shooting in American History is now in full swing. Matt and savannah . Steve patterson in las vegas for us. Steve, thank you very much. We turn to Pete Williams on the phones. You have new information on the gunman and the investigation, own the search going on in mesqui mesquite, nevada, in his home. And you heard the report about the female person of interest. Thats Marilou Danley who lived in mesquite, nevada. They began to look into his past. And that search is still under way. His home in mesquite, nevada, they put an allpoints bulletin out for the cars that were registered to him. Theyve found them. You heard the sheriff say they believe they have located Marilou Danley. We dont know if that means she is in ducustody. Theyre eager to talk to her. They dont know what her role in this was. Several Law Enforcement officials told us when they got in the hotel room, they found what they describe as a cache of weapons. He had several weapons with him. Were trying to figure out what kind of weapons those are. Obviously, you listen to the video, to the sound of the gunfi gunfire, those are automatic shots being fired. You hold the trigger down on the rifle and it continues to fire shots at a rapid velocity. Weapons like that are illegal to possess, unless theyre registered with atf. You cant go out and buy them. Theyre common in the military. One big question here, how did this 64yearold man, get his hand on automatic weapons. Did he buy a regular rifle and convert it to automatic . Those are questions that authorities want to look into. This early hour, just a few hours after the shooting, no one in Law Enforcement has any idea, savannah, why this happened. Pete, i should say, as part of the motive and preparation for this, did he go to that hotel and request a certain room on a certain floor facing a certain direction . Yeah. Very important question. Was this a target he planned to attack in advance. Or did he get there and just decide he would shoot out the window in whatever room he ended up in . And thats an important question. We dont know the answer to that yet. As police develop this backwardslooking timeline, thats going to be an important question. When did hi check into the hotel . What did he ask the desk clerk . Was it him . Was he with the woman . All questions to be answered. As weve been observing all morning long. Nothing to prevent someone walking in with a gun like that in a suitcase, would not have caused any notice whatsoever. Were going to talk to a witness of the shooting. Going to refer to him as shawn. Shawn, where were you at the moment when shes shots rang out . Good morning to you guys. I was probably 20, 30 feet from the stage, which is where the majority of the gunfire was targeted for the first few rounds. Talk about what you heard and talk about what you saw happening around you. Well, it sounded like a lot of people said, like fireworks at a vegas concert. You didnt know if it was or wasnt. The first rounds that were very quick, semiautomatic shots. Very quick. You didnt know everyone was kind of looking around. I think it wasnt until the second round is when everybody started hitting the ground. Thats when the band ran offstage. Jason aldean was escorted offstage. And everyone hit the ground around us. There were people hit near us, as well. Shawn, we saw jason continuing to play before running off stage. Am i right that the location where the shots were coming from, was slightly behind the stage. In other words, the superstructure of the stage shielded the musicians . Not sure where the shots were coming. We were 20 to 30 feet in front of the stage. There was a young lady that was shot right next to us. I dont know which direction they would have been coming from. But definitely the crowd that was a few feet from the stage, were getting hit. And then, as we maneuvered outside of the venue, running, like panic, there was people hit all over the place. Hit as far as the back entrance to get out of there and there were people hit near the portapotties. And people hit everywhere. I dont know what kind of access he had to get everybody. But it seemed like his reach was far. Just briefly, shawn, do you have any idea how long this went on . Honestly, it felt like eternity. It felt like so long. It probably went on from the time we hit the ground, from the time we actually made it out of the venue, was probably like eight to nine minutes. But it felt like it was hours. Shawn, were happy youre okay. Really appreciate you calling in this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. Lets go to nbc news analyst shawn henry who has been watching this. What are your thoughts . We have the name of a suspect . A highpowered weapon. Someone who chose a Vantage Point, innocent victims watching a concert. Its the state of this country going forward, from a security perspective, when i think about this, we have to think about what was the motivation of this man . Why did he do this . Is he engaged with other accomplices . Is there a wider conspiracy . Police officers have to get credit here. Trying to identify where this person is in a highrise. Theres a large open area where this concert was. And multiple venues where the shooting could have taken place. You have the mgm, the luxor hotels, all these hotels, 30plus floors. For Law Enforcement to identify where he was, to try to narrow that down, and identify the perspective of where the shots are coming and other Law Enforcement officers are trying to evacuate people out of the area and then to gain access to that space and do a dynamic entry. We hear the Law Enforcement officers do an explosive breach, its a dynamic entry. Their primary concern is stopping the shooting to protect those people. They dont know what theyre going to encounter. They dont know if theres more than one explosives or one more than one shooter. They use the explosion. A diversion, a lot of loud sounds. Light. Its a divert the person, knock them offtarget and to eliminate this threat. Bill bratton just came in, former new York City Police commissioner. We have big events, like the tree lighting. And when police in new york, expect a gathering, a large outdoor gathering of a crowd like this, they do preliminary overviews of the area to make sure they know what could happen from different areas. Would that have happened in las vegas . Las vegas, like new york, is events like this going on all the time. The event last night, the protocols in Las Vegas Concert promoter promoters have to hire one offduty Police Officer for each 1,000 people attending the concert. Las vegas benefits from the fact of having a fulltime s. W. A. T. Unit. Theres a unit all the time. The Quick Response in las vegas, large department, very good response to this event. Talk about the difficulty of going into a crowded hotel, as a s. W. A. T. Team, and locating the room that you believe the gunfire is coming from. Thats loud. That could be one of several rooms on a floor. And carrying out the mission they did. I stayed at the mandalay. Its a huge hotel. The quick identification of the location and getting a unit up there was just described. We have the radio transmissions that were heard this morning. Those officers did a phenomenal job. One locating the individual and, two, making that entry and taking him out as fast as they did. Fortunately, none of the officers going in appeared to be hurt in the exchange. The man was hef hi haavily arme. And what everyone is responding about, is the gunfire. People that have heard it said that is abautomatic weapon. And the caliber. You go back, 300 feet, the distance. And to the able to inflict that kind of damage, shawn. What kind of weapon are we talking about . It could be multiple weapons. 9 millimeter or 10 millimeter, perhaps. But raining those shots down from 300 yards away, perhaps, that person is likely spraying across the entire crowd. And theres people thats going to be hit indiindiscriminately. Was he trying to hit the performer on stage . Or was he trying to inflict damage . With the amounts shots that were fired, this was intended for mass casualty. Bill, you know in your mind what the weapon looks like. And we talked about the last couple of hours, everybody that walks into the hotel, has a suitcase. Theres no problem moving a weapon alongdisassemble, can be back together again. On the way over, i was on the phone with a senior Law Enforcement official in vegas, whose daughter was at that event. He said his daughter was totally traumatized. He is a Law Enforcement official, familiar with whats going on. He thought his daughter might be one of hundreds of people in this issue. You think about how many times we talk about Mass Shootings, whether thats a few people or dozens. But now, you look at these numbers and you hear at least 50 with many more in Critical Condition at the local level one Trauma Center. And its hard to get your arms around this. If you will stay with us, we want to turn now, we have another witness on the phone, russell black, who was there. Russell, good morning to you. Im glad youre safe and able to talk to us. Can you tell us about what you saw and experienced . Thank you. That was absolute chaos. Whoever the shooter was, was just spraying the crowd. Saw people dropping left and right. Im looking at the footage now for the first time. Its hard to process what just happened. Where were you when this shooting started . We were in the v. I. P. Tent, which is directly facing the mandalay bay. Im guessing thats where most of the carnage happened, over where we were. After the first few bursts, it sounded like firecrackers or like an amp crackling. Jason aldean had just started playing. I was shooting video of his performance. And i was thinking, that sounds like an ar15. And sure enough, it was an automatic rifle, without a doubt. He was spraying the crowd. He was redent lelentless. Five, eight seconds, to move and get out of there as he reloaded. Did you see the wounded, russell . Did you see people who had been injured . It was everywhere. I saw people thank god it was a country concert. You saw exmilitary jump into gear. Guys were plugging bullet holes with their fingers. I saw Police Officers standsing up as targets, just trying to direct people, telling them where to go. The amount of bravery i saw there words cant describe what was like. There were tenfoot walls boxing everybody in. We couldnt escape. How did you get out, russell . Ten minutes, five minutes, under bleachers. Covertocover. Waited until he reloaded and moved. Just trying to get out of there. One way in, and one way out. And the gunman had that bottlenecked. We escaped to the side where all of the food trucks were entering and exiting. Through the police checkpoint. I cant imagine experiencing what you did. Could you tell, especially at first, where the gunfire was coming from . It must have felt like it was all around you. Yeah. I could hear it going through the tent flaps and stuff. And we could feel it ricochet off the ground. What was interesting, im from kentucky. Ive been around guns my whole life. The guy was so far away, you did not know where the shots were coming from. And it would echo throughout the whole area. Nobody knew where to go. And a couple people would run away from a safe area, but you didnt know if it was safe. There was no it was absolute chaos and carnage. Russell, stand with us for a second. I want to ask our guests here about something you just said, commissioner or shawn. He said, it seemed like there were only five to eightsecond silences between the gunfire. Talk about your knowledge of loading and unloading a magazine from a weapon like that. Does that indicated this guy had practiced this and had training . It seems like he was familiar with the weaponry he was carrying. It only takes three to five seconds to remove a clip and put another one in. It will be interesting to see the type of ammunition. The type of ammunition is critical here, in the sense of the injuries that are being described, typical military style cartridge can cause incredible damage. When you hear him, russell, talking about Police Officers standing in the line of fire, talking about the people that had fallen victim to you, is probably not surprising to you . Not surprising and reflective of what i was hearing from my colleague down in las vegas in terms of what his daughter was seeing. Russell, have you made contact with everyone you were with in that concert . Yes. About an hour and an hour and a half later, we got in contact with everybody. A few friends and acquaintances that we know are in the hospital. They were hit. We dont know the condition. Theres not a person in las vegas thats not affected by this in some way. Were a closeknit community. God bless the Police Officers. In a world where everyone is kneeling, these guys stood up. They knew what they were against. And they ran toward the danger. Thats real bravery right there. It is. They say theres no telling how many they saved. Every second was a life lost. And he was just spraying the crowd, tens of thousands of people. He fired into that crowd. You were going to hit something. Total makes me so sick. Hold on, russell. Shawn . Im thinking about the rounds and the casualties that were inflicted here. I mentioned 9 millimeter or 10 millimeter. Those are tactical rounds on the s. W. A. T. Team. But military grade, those bullets, rounds, have the capacity to go through multiple people. The 9 milliliter and 10 millimeter that Law Enforcement uses, you want to make sure they dont go through sheet rock and go through rooms. But this particular case, an ar15 or another military grade weapon, those rounds would have been able to go through multiple people. Russell, our eyewitness, who has just experienced something unimaginable, i hope you will stay with us. Were thinking of you and sending our prayers and so glad you were able to mention the bravery of so many people in that crowd. It bears highlighting and repeating. We send our best to you. Thank you very much. I hope everyone is going to end up okay out of it. Indeed. Thank you, russell. Were hearing from the president. Hes been briefed. He just tweeted. Nbcs Peter Alexander is at the white house with more of what the president had to say. Matt, savannah, on this terrible day in las vegas, we are hearing from president trump. He writes, my warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the las vegas shooting. God bless you. Sarah huckabee sanders, his press secretary, i hung up with her moments ago. The president was briefed by his chief of staff, general john kelkel ly. He had been bri