unfortunately, as i say, this incident happening and right now in a residential neighborhood in san bernardino, california. we're going to stay on top of the breaking news. don't go away. our coverage continues with erin burnett. and thank you very much, wolf. good evening to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm erin burnett and we are following the major breaking news tonight, a dramatic shootout between police and the gunmen on the streets of southern california. this is an ongoing situation as they are searching for other possible shooters. they zeroed in on a black suv that was believed to be carrying up to three gunmen suspected of a deadly mass shooting in san bernardino earlier in the day. now, here's what we know. police have killed one suspect. we saw that suspect lying on the ground outside that black suv. right now they are actively searching the area for other possible suspects. they are desperately trying to

find them before darkness falls and they are in a residential neighborhood, obviously these shooters would be heavily armed, also possibly wearing bulletproof vests. this all just started hours ago and witnesses say up to three opened fire at an office complex about 60 miles east of los angeles. you're looking at that right here. the gunmen attacked people at a conference center at this complex firing what they believe are ak-47 style rivals. that's according to a law enforcement official and then it's reported that they fled the scene in a black suv. at least 14 people are dead tonight. 17 wounded. this is the deadliest mass shooting in the united states since the sandy hook school shooting in connecticut. hundreds of terrified office workers evacuated the building amid a massive police response and manhunt. and we're standing by. any moment now we anticipate a police press conference, which is obviously going to be crucial in terms of the status here. as we said, one gunman is now dead. we don't know if there are two

or one more and where they are. that is starting at any moment. our producer, alberto moyo is at the scene. they are desperately trying to find one, maybe two other shooters? what are you seeing? >> that's right, erin. the police continue to be on the heightened state of alert. they've been like that since we've been here -- we're talking about 45 minutes to an hour now. we had been listening to scanner traffic all day long when we heard that -- when we arrived here in san bernardino. >> i'm sorry to interrupt you. the press conference is starting now. i want to listen in. >> transported to a local hospital and it does not appear to be a life-threatening injury. i believe he's a san bernardino police officer. some suspects have been hit. i believe there is still possibly a suspect outstanding.

so it's still, again, a very active, fluid situation. we don't have a lot of answers yet. they are still trying to sort through what they've encountered on the other end at the other scene. chief burguan is going to be coming here at 4:45 with sheriff mcmahon and again do a press conference so he can update you with any information. >> what about the possibility of a third suspect? >> i'm sorry? >> how many suspects are there? >> i don't know. i believe that there are two at this time being dealt with. >> and is one on the run? >> if there were originally three suspects, there's possibly one still outstanding but, again, i don't know. >> was the suspect who was hit dead? >> i don't have that

information. >> i don't know. their investigation just took them in that path. >> here at this location -- >> i don't know. >> [ inaudible ]. >> did one of the suspects leave the meeting this morning and then return with two others? >> i don't know. that's information i have not been given. >> [ inaudible ] can you please go over, once again, how many suspects are in custody and how many do you believe -- >> i don't have any of the details. the chief will provide those at 4:45. we are just speaking here because we committed to talking to you on the hour and i apologize, we don't have all of the information. >> is the building cleared yet? >> that we don't -- i don't know. >> [ inaudible ]? >> i don't have that information

either. i just know it's not life threatening. i don't know if the suspect has died. we have not been given that. >> how many have been hit? how many suspects have been hit? >> i couldn't tell you that. but if you're back here at 4:45, chief burguan and sheriff mcmahon will be here and they'll probably have a lot more answers for you. again, it's very active. it's not far from here. stay here and let's be vigilant because there very well may be a suspect still out here and we all need to be careful. >> but again, the officers came in contact with the suv because they were doing a follow-up investigation? >> that's correct. it led them that way. correct. >> do you know who opened fire? >> i don't know who opened fire. i don't know. all right. again, at 4:45. thank you. >> all right. that was sergeant vicky

cervantes saying one suspect is down, another one is being dealt with, in her words, and that if there is a third suspect, that suspect is on the run. that's the latest that she has right now. let's get back to our producers, alberto, who is on the ground near the suv. you've heard what the sergeant said, that two suspects are being dealt with. one was on the ground outside of the suv and if there is a third, the third would be on the run. what are you able to fill in for us here? >> that's right, erin. i completely agree because the police we've spoken to here continue to say that this is still an active scene. we've also asked a couple of them if they have got their man, was the word i used. i heard one of them say it looked like they did but we've had two others that have said we just don't know. that's going to pinpoint to the uncertainty of the situation that we're still dealing with here. we're looking at heavy equipment

moving away from the scene. as i was mentioning earlier, there are -- the police here, the presence is massive. we have two police officers and several hundred police officers that are present in that area and they have blocked off at least six blocks. so this is still very much an active area. you can still see policemen moving from down the block from house to house. a little while ago we saw them with guns drawn and then a police cruiser moving in and out and then after that i saw a couple of more police officer who is were located behind the church that is immediately to our right here on richardson avenue and in san bernardino. so there's no question that this continues to be a very active scene. there are helicopters scouring

the scene and they are making sure they do not leave any site unchecked. >> alberto, i'm trying to understand where they are looking right now. they could be looking for someone on foot, it sounds like, from your reporting, the suv there in the middle of the street, the bear cats, the heavily armed police vehicles were around that. that's where the body was found. are you starting to see the bear cats go? i'm wondering if there is somebody inside that vehicle or whether the suspect who was inside the vehicle may have fled. >> i think that because this is still an active search, they are looking everywhere that they can think of. when we first arrived here, there were dozens of police officers running on foot, guns drawn. they completely covered this area.

and immediately they jumped and followed some of the policemen, he said that the bear cat was already in position. i assume what they have been doing, now that the bear cat is moving and the heavy police equipment moved in early on a northern perimeter and everybody that they need to check out gets checked out there is no question that this is an active scene. there are times when you'll see three or four of them with their guns drawn running back into the scene. so we're talking about an area of six blocks and there are hundreds of them who are checking out every single corner of this area. >> all right. alberto, we are going to be coming back to you, obviously, as you learn more on the scene

on this six-block area where they are hunting right now for additional suspects. again, the phrasing at the press release was two are being dealt with and if there's a third, the third is on the run. i want to go to kyung lah who is outside where the shooting happened. she was outside where that press conference occurred. it sounds like they are not sure at this point whether there were two, whether there were three and we don't know what it means when they say two of them are being quote/unquote dealt with, do we? >> well, what we know -- at least what we believe up to this point is that one suspect is down. that's the word that they used. one suspect is down and one suspect may be on the loose. so how did this scene unfold? that scene that alberto moya is at? what the sergeant here says is that an officer was doing follow-up work, follow-up work from this mass shooting behind us. it's about a block away from where i'm standing. that follow-up work led to exchange of gunfire between the

suspects, plural, the suspects and the officer. the officer was wounded. he or she does not have life-threatening injuries but was taken to the hospital. around that time, around that these reports started coming in, we saw a number of police vehicles, including the armored vehicles fly out of here, that they were immediately rushing to that area and then they descended and you can see that the active scene there is still going. meanwhile, you have people here, a number of officers here still working through this scene because this is quite a scene here, according to people who are -- who have communicated with their loved ones inside. they say that there is a lot of work to be done, a lot of interviews to be done. they are still trying to clear this building, erin. but that very active scene is still going on. one suspect down. one suspect still being dealt with. but you may remember, originally there were three suspects, three suspects that police thought that they were searching for so if you do the count, they can

account for two. one is still on the loose. what happened to that third one? they just don't know. >> we just don't know. there are so many questions. all right. we're going to be continuing to talk through this. jim sciutto, though, working his sources right now. jim, what do you know so far? i mean, you heard what kyung said. we're talking about still up to three shooters. one of them, if there is a third not accounted for, the other they are searching for. ammunition, body armor, long guns and, again, let's just emphasize this, multiple shooters. what does this tell you? >> from the beginning, a number of details, a number of facts of this case have caught the attention of both law enforcement and counterterrorism officials that i've been speaking to. one, multiple shooters. that's unusual. two, the long guns, the ammunition they had. three, the military-style clothing, possible masks, maybe body armor. and, four, the fact that they escaped. they had a plan to get away. that all speaks to, and you heard police say it on our air,

that they were prepared, as police say. this required planning to make this happen that's one point. the second point is this. the circumstance of this are extremely unusual. one, the massive police response that we're still seeing under way. but the fact that there appear to be multiple shooters here. the fbi came out with a study a short time ago and it said that of 160 active shooter situations in the u.s. since the year 2000, only two of them have involved more than one gunman. so that's extremely unusual. the other unusual part, too, erin, is the fact that they got away. because, as we know, shooting situations like this in the u.s. have become sort of a form of public suicide, those shooters go in knowing that they are going to die on the scene or possibly wanting to die on the scene, these shooters had a getaway plan. they didn't get far. cops seemed to have gotten them pretty quickly and in the neighborhood but they did get away. and that's extremely unusual as well. there are a lot of parts of this

that are unprecedented, very unusual. >> a lot of parts. all right. art roderick and harry houck are joining me. harry, this is very much ongoing. >> right. >> they are now hunting for one, possibly two additional shooters. the car that one was in is completely shot up. so art, do you believe these other people were in the car and were able to run? is that even conceivable? >> well, the officer who first encountered them and had a shootout and was injured, he knows how many people he saw. it doesn't look like he has a life-threatening injury. he's probably already relayed to the police how many were in that vehicle. that's probably why they are

searching that whole area because i don't know how long it took for police to get there or if there was a direct scene or how close the officer encountered them to where the vehicle finally stopped and one man is dead. >> yes. >> the fact is, they know that there were probably three in the vehicle as a result of that encounter with that officer. the other two may be on foot. >> bobby, we can see from our aerial footage that you're looking at right now that they are doing door-to-door searches. we can actually see that happening. so bobby, do you believe that you've got one, if not two people in this community, in this residential community barricaded in some house? >> absolutely. i think you definitely have some people on the loose there and i think that harry is right, that probably comes from the first responding officer on the scene and i think you probably have a massive effort at the original scene to find out from the witnesses how many people they saw take part in it.

oftentimes witness testimony can be cloudy. did they hear these guys talk to each other in the facility? did they say anything, speak with an accent or slang? i heard there were hundreds of people leaving that building but who saw what and they are trying to come up with a picture of what happened and that could also give them an idea of how many people were involved in the initial assault. >> art, even if that officer that encountered the suv saw, let's say two people, that doesn't mean there wasn't a third, right? is it conceivable if they had planned to get away, this was not a suicide mission, that they would have already split up? >> yeah. this was pretty well planned hit. they didn't spend a lot of time at the conference facility and then they got away and could have dropped somebody off and because everybody is looking for three people in an suv. so they could have dropped somebody off before they encountered the law enforcement officer but obviously this is still a very fluid situation. you heard the press conference.

the spokesperson did not have a lot to say. i think there's still activity going on in another section of town, is what i'm hearing. away from the residential area that we have on camera. but it's hard to say right now. there's a lot of moving parts involved in this particular area. >> this door-to-door search, did they have information that would have caused them to go door-to-door, if one of the suspects would be in a house nearby or would this just be protocol to look? >> well, it's both. i'm sure they are operating off a certain amount of information. the officer who initially engaged them would have seen some things indicative of the number of people. would have identified more than one person. they only have one there at the scene. and the second is, anytime you're involved in one of these situations, you are going to do some standard area search type activity. you're not only looking for a suspect but for additional information of people who might

have that. >> harry, is there a chance that one or two shooters gets away, evades this massive manhunt that we're seeing? >> it's always a possibility. but it doesn't look like that to me. there are so many police officers there. they have that area cordoned off so quickly. it's surprising to me that we look at this attack and analyzing it earlier and how well planned this attack was but these guys weren't smart enough to get out of san bernardino. they had all of that time to get out and they didn't. it goes to show you, no matter how well they think they've got a plan and they did get away from the area but these guys still made a mistake and stick in the area and thank god for that. >> bobby, what do you make of what jim sciutto was referring to, that harry referred to. the clear planning, the military-style precision, the armored vests that they reportedly were wearing, the long rifles and nearly unprecedented nature, if not

fair to say at this point, unprecedented to have three people involved in something like this? >> i when i first heard about this, we've had it in los angeles before, i thought this might be another workplace violence incident, possibly a disgruntled employee of the association that was meeting but i think all of that is being dismissed now because of the very facts that you just mentioned, the fact that it was so highly planned and equipped and that's one of the things that investigators are looking at now. they will look to see if they tactically reloaded while they were shooting. i mean, these guys -- it's a possibility that they could have been on their way to another attack. it's just unknown. but the level of planning, this is something that we haven't seen in a domestic shooting of this nature in a very long time,

if ever. >> and bobby, to that front, do you -- what is your view here on domestic versus international terrorism? they said earlier at a press conference when they first spoke that they could not rule out terrorism. they later said it didn't have the hallmarks of international terrorism, which obviously is very front and center on every american's mind right now. when you're talking about a motive, what does it look like? >> well, it looks like a planned and attack so they are looking to see if they said anything to the witnesses, if they targeted a particular individual before they shot the others. i'm sure they are looking at any threats against any of the people in that meeting, you know, the department that they were all part of. >> alberto, are you seeing what we are seeing from the air, the aerial shots that we have up

here for viewers, still going door-to-door search and have you seen anybody in the neighborhood? are there people possibly still in these houses, somebody that could eventually end up in a horrible hostage situation? what are you seeing? >> erin, we have not seen anybody come in and out of any of the houses or churches. from the moment we got here, the police stormed the area but the only people that we see here are immediately north of the position, the northern perimeter, a lot of onlookers that are keeping an eye on what is happening here. what we have noticed, though, the area seems to have calmed down substantially. the moment that we arrived, policemen told us to get back, some took shelter behind our car, kneeling with their guns drawn. now what we are looking at are the police cars moving more slowly in and out of the area. don't get me wrong, there still continues to be tremendous

police presence in the area and the search continues for anybody here who the police might want to talk to. but there's no question that the energy and the heightened state of alert, although the police remain vigilant, you can still see them going from place to place, the energy has substantially calmed down from when we first got here. also, from our vantage point, we saw that there were numerous police units from neighboring towns that were participating in the search. we saw a u.s. marshall. we've seen the s.w.a.t. teams moving in and out of the area. but you can tell that things have calmed down here, although by no means are they being any less vigilant in their ongoing search and their state of alert here. >> all right. alberto, stay with me. art roderick, you have heard

that there could be other areas that they are looking at. if the energy changes here, they don't think another suspect is here, does that open the possibility that they did split up and that the one was down by the car and now you have one, maybe two other suspects on the loose somewhere else? >> it very well could be. what is happening now, you've got all of these different crime scenes and you need more officers coming in under a mutual aid to secure all of these different areas and i think we're going to be hearing -- it's obviously getting ready to get dark out there, which is going to be an issue for law enforcement. but hopefully they can wrap this up fairly quickly. i think you're starting to hear now some other leads pop up around the san bernardino county area. >> on that note, i want to go to scott glover, another producer here at cnn. possible focus as they hunt for the suspects, you are being pushed back? >> i'm seeing a neighborhood in redlands, the police have blocked off an area outside an

apartment building. there are several, maybe half a dozen police officers, a s.w.a.t. vehicle, an armored large truck, one officer or two officers describing it as leaving the area. that's what i'm looking at right now. >> all right. and harry, as you're hearing scott report, you're jotting down notes? >> yeah. more than likely, the identification will be able to go and check out or ran the plate of the vehicle. if that was not a stolen vehicle or a rented vehicle, they will be able to find out who rented that vehicle and that might be leading us in the other location. >> so you're saying that this is -- they are now following these leads now?

>> yes. >> so there is a possibility that they had a plan that involves splitting up in some ways? >> that's definitely a possibility. we're speculating that based on our experience and what we're seeing here. but that plate was ran instantly and to be able to track where the vehicle came back to and investigators shot out there to follow that lead. and that's a good lead. and scott, how many people would you say where you are now? >> one, two, three, maybe ten where i am right now. some dressed in tactical gear wearing helmets carrying assault-type weapons or things that you would use to enter a building. again, there's the heavy s.w.a.t.-type vehicles parked in the street and seems to be kind of on edge. >> scott, of course stay with us as you're reporting. i want to go to mahir who lives

here and saw the shootout go down with the first -- the shooter that is now down. mahir, we're only going to use your first name. thank you for calling in and being willing to talk to us and for so many who want to understand what happened here, what did you see? >> well, yeah. we just saw a bunch of -- we didn't see much, actually, you know. we just heard so many gunshots, it's crazy. like we -- right now, everything seems to be cooled down and all of that and we just see so many s.w.a.t. and like cops and cop cars, you know? there's at least a dozen or so. probably more, actually. >> probably more than that. and as you said, so many gunshots. we now have been seeing, from the air, watching your neighborhood, the police are going door to door looking for other suspects. you must be terrified. >> well, that's one word, yeah. there's dozens of words to say

what i'm feeling right now. >> have they come to your house? >> well, like the cops just like -- i saw them outside. i motioned to them to come here because i didn't know what was going on. so i talked to them. they just said to stay inside and lock the doors and just wait until we tell you what is going on and if everything is fine. >> how long ago was that? >> like 20 minutes ago. >> since then, you're in the house, who are you with? what are you doing? >> i'm with my mom. >> with your mom. and you're just locking the doors and lying low? >> basically, yeah. >> do you know if any of your neighbors are home? have you been able to talk to anybody else? >> i haven't, no. i'm sure they are all at home safe and sound. i don't see any ambulances.

>> when the shooting happened, how long did it last? you talk about hearing so many gunshots and we now know that one of the shooters from that the attack this morning was dead as a result of that, is down. how long did it go on? >> well, the shooting felt like an eternity but i think it went on ten minutes. gunshots after gunshots, it was crazy. >> did you at the time feel it was related to this? obviously you had no warning from police, right? >> of course i knew it was related to this. i was actually keeping up with the news. i was watching the news, actually. i was watching the news covering this story when it all went down in front of my house. crazy. >> well, mahir, i know that you are terrified. thinking of you and your mother. hoping that you stay inside and stay safe as they keep going door to door. thank you very much for calling us. >> all right. see yeah. >> i want to go to stephanie

elam who is also on the ground. what are you able to tell us right now? >> reporter: erin, i'm where families are reuniting with the survivors of the shooting. what we've just seen are bus loads of people who made it out safely from the shooting and they were reunited here with their family going into the community center here, finding the families and coming out. we've seen some tearful reunions. we've seen some people crying and hugging. as you might imagine, their faces are drawn. a lot of them you can tell, they have been crying, looking to find their family members and some of the family members here waiting, once they are able to hug their family members are crying, releasing the tension, the pressure of knowing that they were safe because of text messaging but a different thing

once you're able to clutch and hold on to them. a lot of people coming outlook very traumatized, as you expect. many not wanting to talk to the media. they just want to get home and make it back to some sort of normalcy here. but we've seen three or four bus loads of people being reunited with their families here. so this is the more positive side and still people very much traumatized by what they saw this afternoon. >> thank you very much, stephanie. of course, so many being reunited with their families and we understand the latest numbers that we have, 17 injured. some of them badly. at least 14 dead. the deadliest mass shooting in the united states since the sandy hook shooting. horrific event, horrific day, unprecedented in many other ways with multiple shooters and a military-style planning precision and assault in terms of what we saw today. at this point, shooter still unaccounted for. one, if not two, and motives still completely unknown.

i am here, we've got former members of the cia, s.w.a.t. team leaders, u.s. marshals, detectives, harry houck, former nypd is with me. within the next 15 minutes we're going to be hearing live from a san bernardino official. we may get an important update as to the whereabouts as to these other suspects but you think fingerprints could have played a big role? >> i'm sure the police have already fingerprinted the body and put those into the system. if they did find i.d. on him, to see if it matches the i.d. on him. if not, if he's been fingerprinted before, we're going to get a good idea on this guy within minutes. that will be a great lead for the police and i'm sure they did that quickly. >> and led them on. bob baer, former cia officer also with me, bob, the question first and foremost in many people's minds today was could this be some sort of international terrorism

incident, something linked to isis? nothing since then has indicated that is what it is but obviously we don't know at this point whether it's a domestic terror, whether it's something else. when you look at it, with everything that we know at this point, the precision, the planning, the vests, the way that this manhunt search has gone down, what do you see? >> erin, i'd like to say, indeed we're going to have a different conversation tomorrow when we have all of the facts but what i don't like about this shooting is multiple shooters, automatic weapons, early reports of ieds, which would mean to slow the police down, the getaway, it looks like these people studied the response -- the police response time to get out of the area. no one stayed in the building and holed themselves up, which would have been a sign of a pure psychotic. and i say this very reluctantly but this has the hallmark of

attacks in the middle east. get out before the police show up. like no shooting i've never seen and i'd be fascinated to hear what the police dig up. >> we're going to hear from them in the next few minutes. i want to go to norman rogers, who also lives on the street where the shootout went down with the black suv. one shooter now dead or down, is the word that they are using at this time. norman, what did you hear or see? >> well, i was in the backyard just checking my plants to see if they needed water because it's cooling down and i don't have to water that often and all of a sudden i hear a barrage of bullets. once in a while we hear firecrackers and i thought oh that's what it is but this was different. i would say probably 100 to 200 rounds and that got me in the house real quick on the floor in

the den until that stopped and then i kind of peaked through my front window and there were policemen everywhere, in our front yard and behind the van. it was quite scary, actually. >> it must have been terrifying. did they come to your house and tell you to lock the doors? did they look through your house? >> yeah, they did. they finally knocked on my door and i could see through my window that it was them so i answered the door and they asked me if i was okay and made sure i was and i said, you know, it's just a little scary. they asked if they could come in. i'm sure they wanted to see if there was anybody in here besides me. i said, come on in. whatever makes you feel better because i'm kind of scared right now. but they did come in and look real briefly and they said there potentially might be explosions a little later because they are looking for a bomb. i said just be very careful,

guys, and that was it. and now they are still looking, i guess for something. i'm not even sure what. >> thank you very much. we're glad that you are safe. glad that they came in and checked. we know that they are going door to door. you all heard norman say he heard 100 to 200 rounds and another neighbor said a ten-minute shootout with the attackers. we're ten minutes away from a press conference from a senior san bernardino police officials where we're hoping to get a lot more information. right now, so many questions outstanding. we do not know still whether there are two more shooters or just one more shooter. we know that one was being dealt with. one -- if there's another one on the run, still so many questions. colonel watt, do you think that they are going to be giving us some answers to these questions? we know that they are looking at

other areas but we haven't heard at this point about another active shooter situation. >> the amount of information they are dealing with right now is quite large and trying to decide what's a priority and what isn't is extremely difficult. so they are focusing on the highest level threats as quickly as they can to identify and follow up on. they are going to try to give as much information as they can but they also don't want to give us erroneous information. >> it's 4:36 in san bernardino. you know, it is going to be getting does bei getting duks in the next half hour or hour. >> they would prefer to work in the hours of daylight, particularly when it comes to identify and locating the threat. those are high-quality police officers and i've trained to work with san bernardino s.w.a.t. team. that's a high-quality team and the resources that they have in that area are quite large, unlike some areas of the country. they will do a great job with

this. >> bob baer, harry houck talked about the one dead shooter which at this point they would have a lot of information about him. his fingerprints, possibly his name, others that will know him. would that lead them to a much more definitive assessment of whether there was domestic or internationally driven terrorism? >> oh, absolutely, erin. they will get it from the fingerprints, car, cell phone, whatever they find. there will be some digital connection to the rest of the world, i would imagine. and it will tell us very quickly, probably later tonight, whether this is terrorism or something else. again, i've never seen multiple shooters with automatic weapons who have fled the scene and with this sort of skill. and it was a certain amount of skill that you just don't ever see this unless people have had pure preparation or training. >> harry, everyone, you can see on part of your screen, that is where the press conference is going to happen at any moment and we anticipate getting very

significant answers there. we're awaiting on the police officers to speak. harry, when you talk about bob talking about the unprecedented nature and concern of three shooters, we've only had two multiple shooter incidents since 2000 and none of them have been like this. if it's not an international incident, what could it be? >> it could be some right-wing group, for all i know. you know, what's really strange about this attack to me, i'm thinking, if this attack was somehow terrorist-related, isis, you know, al qaeda, something like that, why wouldn't they just stay there and kill as many people as possible? and just, you know, kill themselves because usually you see that a lot in these types of attacks. >> right. it was not a suicide mission, to harry's point. >> right. i'm not discounting everything harry is saying but that's something else i'm looking at

here. and they are playing, like i said before, was great until they got out of the news meeting and then these guys stuck around. that show as level of stupidity on their part. >> i want to show you on the bottom of the screen, bob, make sure everyone hears this, suspects are down. one officer wounded. we knew that there was an officer wounded. that officer does not have life-threatening injuries but in terms of suspects down, a few minutes ago at the top of the hour when police officers spoke on the show, they said one suspect is down. they were dealing with another. they are now saying suspects are down, plural. as i said, in the next few minutes, we'll hear more from the police and understand what that means. bob baer, when you put this together, you hear what harry is saying, the one thing that does stand out here, at least they thought they were going to get away. very different than what we saw in paris and does it lead you to think that it is more likely to

be domestic terrorism? >> i always cite it's domestic terrorism. it's the best explanation. but the fact is, a couple of pair shooters did shoot into cafes. abaaoud was planning on carrying out attacks the next day. they don't have a precise manual. some of these people blow themselves up. some of them do multiple attacks. some of them get away. in fact, one of the paris shooters is in syria. he certainly got away. so they don't have a fixed manual on this. again, we're going to have to wait until the facts come out. >> bobby chiccone, when you hear suspects are down, does that change the situation to you? because there still had been a question as to whether there were two or three possible attackers. >>. >> well, and they still may be dealing with that issue. the fact that suspects are down does not negate the fact that there could be additional

suspects being looked for. they might have a good indication that that is all there are but there still could be other suspects out there. >> art, do you think they are still looking for a third, if suspects are down and that means two, it could mean three, if it does mean the two they are referring to, do they believe there is a third? >> they are going to keep looking. obviously we've got a scenario here where the initial reports were three, up to three. >> uh-huh. >> i'm hearing that there's possibly a third one out there. so, again, we're still in a fluid situation here. obviously this press conference is going to be key. one of the important things to note is that the s.w.a.t. teams in the armored vehicles are key to this surge. if we're talking about these assailants using either ar-15s, which is a 223 round or ak-47 which is a much larger round, a a.6 round, i would hate to be a regular patrol officer with my

bulletproof vest and handgun to go up against that kind of fire power because it will go through the vehicle and through my vest. >> harry? >> oh, yeah, without a doubt, he's right. that 5.6 round, military-type rounds, it goes right through your vehicle and through your vest, right through the back of your vest and probably into the back of the vehicle that you're driving. it's a very fast round. they have capabilities of 30 rounds, 60 rounds for this, also. it's a very bad round. >> deb feyerick is joining us with breaking details. deb, what do you know about the suv and what they found? >> yeah. and this is in talking to a source. there were two men inside that vehicle. at least one of them is dead following the chase. one of the men that was outside the vehicle. both of them had ar-15 type weapons. as police were chasing the vehicle, items were being thrown from the vehicle, including what

appears to be these pipe bombs and those are being dealt with very closely right now. we know that one of the officers engaged the suspect, one of the suspects from the back window. the officer engaged them. that officer is now being questioned because what they are really trying to determine, erin, is just how many people there were altogether in that car. and that's why you can see some of what is taking place, going door-to-door, making sure no one got out. the search in redlands, i'm being told, is the home of one of the possible suspects. so this is over a certain range and that's one of the reasons, because they were throwing things from the vehicle, because they were firing back and clearly police are trying to make sure that no one else is out there and on the loose and that's really what they are engaged in right now. erin? >> deb, you're answering a crucial question. we had a reporter on the ground in redlands. you're saying that there were two in the vehicle which would

indicate that unless they split, there may not be a third? >> that is not clear. there is a lot of confusion and chaos. things that i was told an hour ago have changed a little bit. what we are learning is the home that's being looked at in redlands is the home of a possible suspect. they are looking at that right now. again, nobody has said there are other suspects out there. in terms of who else they are looking for, that's why they are questioning the police officer because he was the one who really had eyes on the vehicle and he's the one who was injured in a ricochet effect and so they are now questioning him because what he knows could be very, very valuable in terms of how many were in that car and how many might be at large, if, in fact, there were more. >> do you know names, profile, anything about these individuals that could lead down the path to

who they knew and who else was involved and the motive? >> they -- all of that is being looked at right now very aggressively. as harry mentioned earlier, they are likely taking fingerprints from the individual who is known dead. they will link him to certain addresses. there was a name noting out there earlier today. right now we are being careful in terms of not reporting a name. there doesn't appear to be a motive. interestingly, i heard one of the experts speaking on your show, they have a plan to execute this which for all intents and purposes, could be like any active shooter drill but they didn't have a plan to get out very much like the kurachi brothers. it appears that law enforcement really does have this, to a large extent, under control.

>> deb, thank you very much. obviously significant reporting there from deb. the press conference will start at any moment. so, again, we're going to leave that picture up because the minute the police chief approaches that podium, we'll be going there. deb breaking significant, new information saying that there were two men in the vehicle with ar 15-type weapons and that they were throwing things out of that suv before the shootout happened, including pipe bombs. harry, two men in the vehicle, still as deb said, unclear whether there is a third. they don't have an answer on that. when you hear what deb just reported, how does this change the story for you? >> well, you've got two dead perps or, you know, i assume they are both dead. you've got them fingerprinted already. >> it says suspects are down so the presumption is that the suspects, plural, were in the vehicle. >> they have both been fingerprinted already. that information went in. dna was also taken, put in to

some type of database. whether or not there's a third guy or not, the police should already know that by now. they know that the officer engaged these guys. and there might have been other witnesses that saw the engagement with the officers and some of the officers that were chasing the vehicle. so the police should know by now and if there were any videos at the scene where the attack occurred, how many shooters there were. they have plenty of witnesses that they have spoke to. so they should be pretty clear. but it seems like they are very hesitant to say whether or not they can confirm a third shooter or not and that's kind of crazy to me. >> colonel watt, does that concern you that they are not able to identify if there's a third shooter? >> they are going to keep working on that. let's not lose sight of the fact that there are people who supported these people and their activities. there are going to be more sites

and searches and efforts to obtain information and determine the extent of the planning, the organization. there would be people assisting in pretarget surveillance. this is going to continue to grow. it's not going to stop soon. >> art, there is talk about pipe bombs being thrown out of the car before the shootout, the ar-15 rifles. do you think that they were planning more attacks, that this was perhaps a getaway to something else or what? >> to know that they are throwing pipe bombs out of the window, they were very possibly going to a different location and it makes sense now that they had that eod vehicle come up to the suv that was abandoned by the one shooter and it was blocked in by the other two bear cats. now we know why. they threw pipe bombs out the window. this gets really scary once you start talking about pipe bombs. we haven't heard yet what was in

that suspicious package at the facility that was left behind. >> that's right. >> was it also a pipe bomb? >> harry, you're talking about when you hear about all of these weapons, though, if there was another location planned, it wasn't nearby? >> right. i mean, why would they wait so long to attack when you have every single police in that area from the first attack, they were basically free to go to another location and attack and they didn't. all right? were they waiting for tomorrow? i mean, this is what doesn't make sense to me. why are they still in the area? the only reason you can think of is the reason they are still in the area is they wanted to attack another location. for some reason, either they didn't or they weren't smart enough to do the attack right away and they were going to wait later on to tonight or maybe tomorrow. hopefully that they didn't get caught. why were they out there driving around on the street with the weapons when they knew that we were looking for that type of vehicle? something does not make sense to me. >> bobby, does it make any more

sense to you? >> i agree, harry. the thing that bothers me about the domestic terrorism scenario, either the target, the individual target or location target is symbolic and we don't seem to have that in this scenario. when mcveigh blew up the mura federal building, the day of the attack and time was symbol i can. we don't have a symbolism, either by the individuals that were attacked or at the location unless we can develop a little more and i'm sure the people at the joint regional intelligence center manned by all the state, local and federal authorities is as intelligence fusion, so working on these senator ocenar. to me domestic terrorism is not the symbol associated with the targets. >> when you hear about the pipe bombs being thrown out of the

car, will note pamela brown is being told the current belief is this is either domestic terrorism or criminal, whatever just to make that distinction. when you hear the pipe bombs, what does it lead you to to believe? >> erin, i think about boston that tsarnaev brothers threw pipe bombs to break contact with the police. this is a fairly common tactic in the middle east when you're being chased you throw a couple bombs out. they go off. the police stop. they back off. you get away. i can only speculate why they threw them. clearly that car by throwing them out the window, they weren't going to save themselves from arrest or anything, so i would imagine they hoped to get the police to back off to either escape or move to the next target. you know, again, and i agree on the symbolism, it's incomprehensible unless there was a group of people we don't know about because i don't know

of any political connotations that that health center had. it's just crazy. >> right. it was a broader health center as we've talked about and conference center there, which we understand was an end of the year thing for county officials. so there were government officials of some sort there. i mean, harry, we do know that. >> if this was a militia group, which is another guess, all right, why would they attack the department of health? why wouldn't they attack a federal building or something like timothy mcveigh did? maybe they knew there would be a large amount of people there and that's why they chose to attack that location. there is a lot of questions that need to be answered here and we're going to learn a lot about this attack and we always learn a lot to be able to help prevent the next one. >> the big question, though, if there is another shooter on the loose that they have been vague, maybe we'll get answers on the press conference that's a couple minutes late, maybe we'll get

answers. you got darkness descending and at this point, no one publicly knowing what the motive is here, the people that they did find, the two shooters down had all these extra pipe bombs, what does that say about this possible third shooter and what this person could be capable of doing? >> they need to make the assumption there was a third shooter. the target disturbs me because it speaks to me of a high body count, high body count reasonable helpless people on a location. that has a signature to it, and like bob baer says, the tactics speak more of the middle east than the kinds of things that are criminal in nature. >> why, then, just i'm asking you to speculate, why wouldn't they have killed more people than they did? they had a lot of weapons they didn't use. why would they have fled instead of killing more people and ending this in a suicide mission? >> well, the amount of time in which they left speaks to some

knowledge of police response capability and i think there may very well be the likelihood of a second target. what stopped them? it will be interesting to hear about. >> when you talk about police response time, i believe bob e baer was pointing out seven to 12 minutes. whatever they could do within that time frame and leave the first scene? >> absolutely. >> and i definitely -- >> the amount of time they used to create as much damage as possible and then move on speaks to me of planning and coordination. >> right, and apparently they had pipe bombs in the vehicle and they figure the police would chase them and use them by throwing them out the window. that's a big question here. you know, i'm going on a thought there was probably going to be a second attack but somehow for some reason they didn't do it and we're going to have to find that out. that's the only reason why they would still be in the area.

if they really wanted to get away, they could be on that one highway and gone within five minutes. so they stuck around the area so there had to be another attack planned. >> they were throwing pipe bombs, what would be the reason for that? >> very possibly i would agree that would have been the tactic. there is a lot of strange circumstances going on here. they picked that one building that was the softest target because in the other two buildings, you needed a key pass to get in and key passes to get in the different doors. so obviously, they had some intel to say that they were letting the public walk in and out of the conference center because of the event going on. i also -- it's also interesting that the -- you know, them throwing the pipe bombs out of the car, you would assume that was to break contact with police

but again, was this going to be used at another event or location? >> you know, also, the fact that they attacked this location because, you know, if they had attacked a building, they would have to go into different rooms. >> this was a compound, offices that dealt with people with disabilities and there was a conference. so it was a very big conference. >> you got a conference center where they can go and targets just standing there in front of them. this was a target-rich environment. everybody behind doors and out in the open and they are having a good time and partying. >> i'm sorry? >> it was similar to paris what happened at the concert theater. you have a large group of people you can shoot and get a high body count. >> art, the question so we can understand this on motive to answer the questions but there is the question as to why did they not kill more people if they have ar-15s, they had pipe bombs, they did not choose to do

that. >> they might have had a specific time to be on the ground to compete whatever mission that they were going to do and that could have been -- i mean, there was also talk there was a fire alarm pull in a building and initially we thought hey, that's a good tactic to get everybody out of the building because of the active shooter protocols where everybody shelters in place behind a locked door. if they stayed on the scene, they could have actually shot a lot more people. i think just from the information we know now they probably had a specific time they were going to be in there before they made the escape. >> we don't know anything. the press conferences so far, police officials have been asked, did they yell anything? people of course are trying to figure out whether this was, let's just be honest, whether there was islamic terrorism to this. they haven't answered this question and there is no indication that is the case at this point. do you think that that is still possible? >> i don't think international

terrorism is indicated here, and i also don't -- i'm not really sure about the domestic terrorism angle. i would be surprised if they didn't have some connection to the group meeting there. if they were only interested in a high body count, there are other opportunities in and around this area, sporting events, movie theaters, other public gatherings that would give them the opportunity for that. it's not a remote location but a specialized location. it would be -- i would tend to think they had some connection to the location -- >> or the event. and i guess the question is then how could they have worked together? that is what is also impressive. this is a single shooter. if this were a single shooter, this conversation would be different. this is two, if not three people that worked together and coordinated and pulled something off. >> it's not -- we have an incident reminds me of an incident in l.a. many years back. a bank robbery up at bank of america. the guys were very heavily

armed, military style and body armorment and helmets and shields and of course now everybody remembers it was carried out live on television. that was a bank robbery. we knew the motivation but the tactics those use when you watch them shoot with the police, the weapons they had, the body armor was military grade. their tactics they used for cover and concealment and movement were military style cover, both suspects ended up being killed in the attack but that's always in the minds of the law enforcement in and around l.a. we had in 1996 before i joined the fbi in '87 miami shootout and couple bank robbers killed two agents and they were taken out after a long shootout with police. so, you know, the tactics may not be unprecedented. we had the bank of america shooting where they were very heavily armed and very well planned of course they were caught in the incident but there still could be two guys who had some kind of beef with somebody in that room and who knows,

maybe they had prior military training and maybe they were in the military and took a long time planning this and going out and training. this could still be that type of event. >> bobby, thank you so much, thanks to all of you. this is the press conference going to begin any second. let's hand it off to "ac 360" and anderson. good evening, everybody. as you see, we are awaiting a press conference now from police officials to get the latest information because there have been a lot of conflicting reports in a very fast-moving situation. what may be the deadliest mass shooting since sandy hook. we know it is according to police. massive police presence in san bernardino, california, south of the airport. we are waiting to hear from authorities expected to brief reporters at any moment. here is what we know right now. one or more suspects is down, possibly dead after a chase and a shootout that reportedly included suspects armed with