this was methodical. >> that means he is thinking. >> he is looking. >> sounds like he is picking his targets. than thanks for joining us tonight. our live coverage continues right now with my colleague anderson cooper. >> good evening, thanks for joining us on this valentine's day. we begin our program with broken hearts. a high school in parkland, florida became the scene of chaos and panic. broward county sheriff says at least 17 people are dead. the suspect is in custody. we will not share his name or his picture. we will keep our focus on the victims, their loved ones and

survivors. high school kids, teachers, parents, brothers and sisters. people whose lives were forever changed this afternoon. right now we are going to show you a short video taken inside the classroom during the shooting. difficult to watch and difficult to look at. >> holy -- [ gunfire ] >> oh my god. [ gun fire ] >> oh my god. [ gunfire ] [ screaming ] >> randi talk to me about the latest of what we know what happened? >> i can tell you for sure, it was an afternoon filled with

terror for so many. would be considered one of the safest in the state of florida. a sheriff late this evening told us the shooting began outside the building and entered inside the high school building. the shooter talactually followe the victims inside. investigators have the task of going inside the high school building and identifying the victims. around 2:30 p.m., the broward county sheriff respond to reports of a shooting at marjory stoneman high school. >> kids were freaking out. a lot of them were on their phones trying to snap chat

everything. >> reporter: s.w.a.t. teams go from room to room securing areas before allowing students and teachers to evacuate. >> this is insane. it is unnecessary. it is, there is no words to describe right now. i was shaking. i was panicking. all out panic throughout the school. >> reporter: students run to safety after they were escorted outside of the building. some with hands still in the air others clutching each other for support. first responders tend to the wounded and parents wait to see their parents outside of the lock down zone. >> reporter: do you know is your daughter safe? >> thank god. she kept texting me. and she said that she was hiding. that she was fine for me to call 911 because there was somebody hurt on the third floor in the

1,200 building. she was, she was very nervous. she said she could hear the person who was shot crying out for help. and was a nervous wreck. >> reporter: the fbi and atf joined local law enforcement on-site. police have confirmed they know the identity of the suspect. just before 4:00 p.m. the broward county sheriff office said they found the shooter and arrested him without incident. >> i understand you have been speaking to families there as well. >> reporter: as you know all too well, days like these are heart breaking. when i arrived on the scene parents were still outside waiting outside. a woman told me she was still waiting for word of her daughter, at least to see her daughter. she had gotten a text message earlier and locked herself in a

closet. texting i love you mom. if i don't make it, i love you mom. many feelings from families and parents on this heart breaking day. >> reported new information. the shooter, not only is he in custody, but actually talking to investigators. and one of the things they have learned based on sources is the shooter arrived on school with a gas mask and smoke grenades. and the student pulled the fire alarm supposedly to have the students come out and be a big mass casualty. i spoke to a teacher at the high school. how are you holding up right now? >> i'm not really sure. it doesn't seem real.

i am not how to process it. the emotions from today have been so extreme from being totally terrified and trying to keep the students calm and trying to make they reunite with their families and trying to get myself home and making it home and kind of losing it. i'm not really sure where you go from here and how you deal with it. >> if you can, if it is not too painful, can you explain what you saw and heard? you were teaching this afternoon, and the fire alarm went off around 2:30, i understand. >> right. it was fourth period, that is my newspaper class. so i was working with the kids, making the school newspaper and the fire alarm went off and we had one this morning. but there have been times in the past where the fire alarm wasn't working properly, so we had to evacuate a couple of times. we followed the protocol.

when it goes off, we have to evacuate -- >> and i am sorry, you had a fire alarm drill this morning. >> this morning. at 9:00, the fire alarm went off this morning and we had our drill and it is unusual for a second one to go off a second time. >> and we now understand it was the shooter who pulled the fire alarm. >> right. that is what we suspected as the situation unfolded. so we make it out, you know, of my room, out in the hallway and starting to go down the stairs and the security guard who is posted in our area, said no, it is a code red. go back. teachers who were there called out to the kids and we started going back to the classroom and taking in kids and yelling to kids in the hallway to go inside -- >> i'm sorry, code red does that

mean an active shooter. >> an active shooter, yeah. >> you have drilled for that? >> yes. we had a training recently. we could not have been more prepared for this situation which is what make it is frustrating. because we had trained for this. we trained the kids for this. we did everything we were supposed to do. we were prepared for this situation. and still to have so many casualties, at least for me, it is very emotional. i feel today like our government, our country has failed us and failed our kids and didn't keep us safe. >> you heard code red so you got your students back into your classroom? >> yeah. i turned around. because we were very closed to my room. opened my door, pulled in my kids who some of them ended up in another classroom. i pulled in a couple of kids who weren't mine and their classroom

was across the school. i pulled those kids in and stood in the hallway for 60 to 90 seconds i would say calling to kids in a hallway to get into a classroom. didn't matter who their teacher was, just to get inside. and after about 60, or 90 seconds, i closed my door and we huddled in the corner for a few minutes and i made the decision to move everyone to the closet. >> were you hearing anything at this point? i assume the alarm was still going off. did you hear any shots? did you hear anybody yelling instructions anywhere? >> no. i work on the opposite side of the school where the shooting occurred. so we were on the opposite side but within two to three minutes we heard helicopters and sirens

and didn't hear any shooting. >> how many kids can you fit in a closet? >> today i fit 19 kids in a closet plus myself. so we managed to all get in there and we huddled in there for about 30 minutes. it was hot. >> and does everybody try to stay quiet? >> yeah. everybody, you know, is on their phone and trying to get in touch with their family and we are staying quiet and i had girls that were crying and trying to keep them calm and telling them that we are going to be okay. and trying to hold yourself together. my family is calling me to see if i am okay. so you just kind of do the best you can and muddle through. but try to do the best you can for the kids that you are supposed to keep safe. >> and i understand it was the s.w.a.t. team that came to get you out. >> the s.w.a.t. team did come and get us out.

we heard them in the room and called out to see if anyone was in the room because we were hiding in the closet. we slowly opened the closet door and told them we were there and they had us come out single file. and at that point, all of the texts and messages and the news reports were that they were still looking for the shooter so they were looking through the building and clearing it. >> are all the kids that you know accounted for? >> i mean, all the students that i teach are accounted for. i have heard rumors about other students that are not my students but related to students that i have and i don't know if those reports are true or not. and it is hard for me to say. until the names come out, i won't know if any of them are my current students or former

students. i have heard some of my colleagues may have been killed and i won't know until the names come out. >> i am so glad you are safe and able to protect your students. the kids are lucky to have them as your teacher. thank you for talking to us. >> thank you. >> all the latest now. jim, you used to lead an fbi s.w.a.t. team. just in terms of what we know so far, what stands out to you. >> takes me back to april 1999. one of the biggest thing that law enforcement does after an incident like this is they conduct an exhaustive after action report. >> columbine changed everything in terms of police response. >> it changed everything.

>> prior to columbine nobody knew what the term active shooter meant. >> tactical teams had to be a homogeneous. nowadays. what we do is go to the sound of the guns. you get, one, two, three, four, people together. we are trained. >> you don't wait for a s.w.a.t. team. it is the initial officers who are on the scene. if it is a bike cop, whoever it is, you find the shooter. >> the number one gun is to interdict the shooter or shooters. in the old days, you took land. you slowly and methodically cleared the next room. in this instance we learned again, post columbine get to the shooter as quickly as possible.

>> my understanding the fbi has done exhaustive reviews of every active shooter situation since columbine and have learned that most fatalities take place in the first six minutes. if you are waiting to set up a perimeter and waiting to go from room to room, the deaths are more. >> we go back to 1966. and in that instance it was the same thing. most of the shootings happen right away. went up and confirmed the gunman and that was the birth of special weapons and tactical teams. >> i have been in school and watched the active shooter drills. and a lot of it is the teachers bring students in their classrooms and huddle in closets and doors. this shooter pulling the fire

alarm, clearly that was meant to not only get people out and kill as many people as possible, it is that way to overcome the active shooter. if they hear an active fire alarm, they are going to be tempted to go out. >> james is right. one of the first questions is not only what happened in this particular instance but how do you put it in context and find lessons learned. can you determine who is going to do an act like this. if you can't do that, how can you secure the prerimeters. what happens when someone breaches the perimeter. what is your response. and then you have someone that says i am going to break down

your response and pull the fire alarm and force people to get out. if a young people decides that he wants to shoot a lot of people and acquire a weapon that was legally acquired, how are you going to prevent him from accessing hundreds of thousands of students. i am not sure the answer is we will find any answer. >> actually, the fbi and broward county are asking people who have video and you heard one of the teachers talking about snap chat. and we saw one video, they are saying, they tweeted out this thing saying the fbi has set up a website where you can upload images and video of the stoneman shooting. visit fbi.gov/parkland shooting to submit any information you have on the shooting that occurred at the high school.

i don't think we have seen that before. sending videos to police so they can try to piece it together. >> that is not the only reason. the first question we are almost at the end of resolving this, is when you see that video, do you see anything that suggests that he came in with another accomplice. let's ensure there wasn't anything going on coordination with another student. then you have the evidence. do you have evidence as you suggest, iphone video that will help. lessons learned do you have videos that suggests to us that could be handled better. crowd sourcing crime is gatiett

bigger and bigger. not only in determining who did it but did something happen that we can prevent in the future. it is huge. >> we talk about terrorist as being a learning enemy. the idea that a kid, an 18-year-old, or 19-year-old could look at other school shootings, maybe he had gone through active shooter training as a student in that school and then try to figure out a way how to overcome and get more students out of the classroom when they are supposed to be huddled inside. >> you are absolutely right and all you need is an imagination. and if you take an 18-year-old kid that is in custody now, he has probably been through that training probably since elementary school and in fact he wasn't even born when columbine happened. so let's take into account a

number of things. we can talk about what happens when the alarm goes off and police respond. and they do a terrific job. but unfortunately when that alarm goes off, a body count is being added up. and in this particular case, 17 young lives were lost today. police got there rapidly. everybody did the best they could do under the circumstances. we could go back and analyze what occurred. but the important piece in all of this anderson, and i think your guest mentioned it, it is the whole prevention piece. we got to go back and look at how do we protect our second amendment right but at the same time as you heard the teacher saying that you were interviewing moments ago, that she don't feel the government protected her. so we have to do things in this country that is legislatively is going to give us an opportunity to prevent these types of events. because once someone penetrates

into that building and it doesn't take much, quite frankly, no matter how much you secure it. it is a variety of different ways. we have to get into the prevention piece of this and that mean he is our congress, our white house, our nation, our state is going to to do a better job to protect our nation and our people. >> julia, if you have a large school with multiple entrances and multiple exits, and most of these fatalities take place in the first couple of minutes, if you have an ar-15 or anything that can fire off a lot of rounds no matter how quickly police get there or whatever police security guards are already on scene, if you have a large facility and you have a large capacity magazine, there is not much you can do to stop

that. >> that's exactly right. and so we can talk about training and fortifying schools, that's great. but we begin, we have to also talk of course about the weapons. s and to think about our responses in light of the weapons out there. the columbine lesson was run, hide, and only engage so much. we are going to have to start thinking about whether engagement actually will protect more lives in the long run. i don't know the answer to that. but you know, these are not hand guns anymore. these are not things that have six or seven bullets and then they go out. that is the first part is to rethink our planning and the second is i refuse to believe, and you can call me delusional, or maybe i am just a mother, i refuse to believe that there aren't moments in nikolas cruz's

last couple of months something bad isn't going to happen. who is he talking to? his social media posts? all of that seem so obvious to us now, but obvious to other people before and that's where we have to begin to empower people to say something is terribly wrong and we can't just, anyway, take responsibility for the people around us. >> we are getting more and more details and will be. we are going to bring them to you throughout the evening. let's get the latest in the investigation. bring us up to speed. >> a lot of new details coming in the last hour. we are told that the suspect is talking with investigators. it appears that he is providing information and we are getting some sense of what they learned. and this here is what some of

what they are now learning. that the shooter here, pulled the fire alarm to draw people out. he wanted to get a higher death toll. this is based on conversations perhaps that they had with him indicating there has been some level of planning. we are told he escaped from the school by blending in with some of the students as they were leaving or perhaps running out of the building. he was briefly able to escape. this is what these law enforcement officials are telling us. and we are also learning and as you know, from the sheriff when he held his press conference, they are really learning a lot from his social media postings. the sheriff calling it disturbing. he would not specify why it was disturbing but raised some issues on social media. and then the gun. this ar-15 style rifle.

the sheriff talked about it and multiple magazines and what we have learned is that the atf is tracing that weapon in hopes of trying to find out did he buy this weapon his own. did someone buy it for him. learn the history of this weapon trying to answer questions here about where he got this gun. >> i think i heard your report earlier, that he had arrived and when he pulled the thing, he had a gas mask. >> that is coming from the florida senator. he was saying he was wearing a gas mask and had smoke bombs as well. we have not been able to confirm that with law firm. we have no reason to believe he doesn't know what he is talking about. but again, goes to the level of planning. there are indications from law enforcements that this was well-planned. >> how well-known was this former student who is 19-years old known to other students. >> so law enforcement has talked

to both students who knew him well and some students who said they never seen him. he was expelled from the school a year ago. student who is talked to reporters outside of the school they said they knew him. hearing that he liked guns. one particular student was telling local reporter that he liked guns. and that even more important is they were not surprised to learn who was behind this. they suspected it was him. not clear why they thought that. but one of the situations that based on what the student is saying and what law enforcement is learning, there were signs here and just why no one came forward to report any of it. >> the fbi is working with local authorities on the investigation. >> yeah, they are. right now, there is nothing to indicate that this shooter is going to face federal charges.

this will probably be handled on the local level. but the fbi, they come in to assist and help process the crime scene. some of the video they are asking for process some of the video, process the crime scene. help question witnesses. and the other key thing here is the families. they come in and try to help some of the families who we can't forget about and what they are going through. and the fbi put out a tip line asking people if they have any information to call them because, you know, they want to know what else was missed here. what they will do as part of that is build out a time line. go back in time, perhaps a year or maybe longer. to see what was missed. >> appreciate that. we will check in with you again. 17 people were killed. most found inside the school and three people were found inside.

every second is obviously kr critical in a tragedy like this. today they had to use the training. i want to listen to those first responders as they worked quickly to help the victims. >> 17 julia five. i have the gunshot victim. he is by the entrance. on the west side of the school. >> fire rescue is being notified. >> where the shooter is. >> we don't know. but we are heading into the building. the 13 been building. >> does anybody have bolt cutters? i can get this kid out of the fence. he is stuck in the fence. i need bolt cutters. >> the coach is with him. >> undate on the people who were

injured. what do we know about the status of some of those injured tonight? >> well, it was a total of 17 patients that were taken from this school shooting to various hospitals. two main hospitals that these patients were taken to. i am standing at the closest hospital to the school. eight patients were brought here. eight patients, we don't know their ages. we don't know if they were all students or teachers. thr three in critical condition. three still in surgery. we are told by the hospital that they are in stable condition. two patients did not make it out of the hospital. they died here at this hospital. an unusual turn in part because of the close proximity of the hospital to the school. the suspect did arrive here and was treated. >> can you describe the scene there outside the hospital right

now? obviously it has got to be, at least through the day it must have been chaotic. >> reporter: it really reminds you, that what we are dealing with here is families. when we arrived here, there were, there is some chaos. some controlled chaos here at an emergency center. but where we are, is where the hospital asked us to park. a bit of the distance away from the emergency room doors. you can see it in some distance behind my right shoulder. the people in the parking lot closest to the emergency room, you could almost experience the horror with them. they were pulling up in minivans, in suvs. these are the vehicles of families, mothers and fathers running out of the vehicles heading to the emergency room. you could see them talking to police outside of the door and

being directed to another part of the hospital. some parents can't get enough information. they start checking the hospitals on their own and that is what we saw unfold. panic, concern, and trying to find the answers and some of them being wiskhisked away to or parts of the hospital. what we are dealing with are child victims and parents seeking answers. >> that impossible wait. having to wait for hours and hours until they find out the fate of their child. the broward county sheriff's department tweeted out requests to send in videos. fbi.gov/parklandshooting. anything that they shot on their phones. i want to show you a short video

taken inside a classroom. it is tough to watch. tough to hear. we have blurred out the faces of the students. >> holy -- [ gunfire ] >> oh my god. >> just one classroom. we will not show the shooting suspect's name. we don't want to give him any publicity. we want to give you as much information about him as we can. former student at the school. expelled for disciplinary reasons. what do we know about this person? >> as we have waited for absolute confirmation, we have been gathering that information. it paints a dark pictures. the sheriff alluded to that. we have been finding some comments posted under the same

name as the suspects wrn unditt under youtube. nine months ago it was this, i am going to kill law enforcement. i am going to watch those sheep fall and this was oct 19 last year. i want to shoot people with my ar-15. students say this was a violent kid. he was one of the kids that if you did him wrong, he would get you back. he wore dark clothes. the suspect had left the high school last year or a year before. and that was confirmed by the sheriff. this kid had been he cexpelled

disciplinary reasons. if they are all him, what happened today was telegraphed by the shooter himself. >> do we know anything about his family? did anyone close to him, any family member, were they aware of these postings. >> reporter: we are unclear about the family situation. we don't have that nailed down. we are trying it determine if in fact he did have parents at the time of the shooting. so we are looking into that, anderson, trying to track it down. again, these postings as alluded to by the sheriff and his news conference show a dark individual forecasting what happened today. >> and specifically with the weapon. what he wants to do with the weapon. the congressman for the

districts i spoke with him just a short time ago. >> congressman, first of all, i am sorry for what your community is going through what is the latest you are hearing from law enforcement. >> well, the latest from law enforcement is that the number of fatalities is up to 17. they are learning more information about the shooter, about the kind of weapon that he used. and that is, that's the update on the numbers, anderson, but the difficulty is that these 17 fatalities have family members and the community is really going to struggle in the coming days and weeks. just a horrific terrible situation. >> the amount of preparation that went into this. learn from law enforcement, that apparently the shooter is now cooperating. he came in a gas mask with smoke grenades to the school and was

the person who set off the fire alarm, the idea drawing students out and creating as many casualties as possible. >> right. the details of what happened today are important. the investigation will continue. we need to know much more about who this person is and to try to understand everything surrounding the shooting. ultimately, this is the worst day for douglas high school and the wonderful community of parkland, at this point, i believe 17 lives. and look, this is, this is one of the finest schools in the state. i was there just a couple of weeks ago talking to these kids about what they can do to be involved in communities.

and every one of these kids and their families now need the community to be with them to help console and to help stand up and to help them overcome the horrific activities of today. >> will something change because of this? as you know, time and time again, people whether it is aurora, colorado, or after columbine or sandy hook have said, clearly now, something must change. do you think it will? >> anderson, i learned something heart warming and frankly obscene today, the colleague of mine handed me the protocol of the way to deal with mass shooting like this. there have been so many. does this mean that there is

going to be an immediate rush to do something? you know, history would say no. but it doesn't matter what community you live in, these kids who went to school today and who never went home to their families, they weren't partisan. they weren't shot because how they feel about the second amendment or who they voted for for president or how they feel about the nra. this is not what this is about. this is about preventing mass shootings that happened today. and now you bet, we have to redouble our effort and not simply throw up our hands and say this is what we have to live with. we don't. nobody has to feel the way my community feels right now. >> what message do you have for

them? >> i am going to be honest with you, and i have said before when there is a mass shooting that thoughts and prayers are not enough. and i stand by that. but you know what, they mean a lot. and to all of the people in south exploflorida and around t country who have offered their support, it is incredibly appreciated. it is important. h this is a great community that is going to need to be with them and help them over the coming days and weeks. there will be time where we will have to double down our efforts and try to prevent this from happening in the future. but for right now, i am grateful for the support and i want people to know how much it is appreciated. >> congressman thank you for

talking to us tonight. trying to talk to as many people who experienced and trying to see it from as many angles. joining us on the phone is a student from the high school. first of all, i am so glad you are okay and you are safe. how are you doing right now? >> hello. i am okay. for all of those who are lost during this, i want to say to the families, we stand with you. and we're sorry. because these administrators and students are humans too and they didn't deserve to go out like this. >> if you can, tell me what happened today. i understand there was the fire drill that went off. and we understand it was the student himself who set it off. what happened then? >> i was in class. and i heard the fire drill. and i didn't budge because this

happened already today. my teacher said this wasn't scheduled. and then i heard on the announcements to evacuate. we all get out. i am going down the route and i am halfway down the stairs and an administrator is blocking my way and saying go back. go back. it is a shutdown. and after he said that, i heard four or five gunshots and we started booking it to a classroom that were open. >> did you know they were gunshots right away? >> we heard a bunch of pop, pop, pop. if it wasn't real, it was a drill they were training us for. but either way i took it seriously. >> when you got into a classroom, how long were you in that classroom for? >> i was in the classroom for

two hours. when it cake to the evacuation process, they go class by class. >> that must have been so scarey. >> yes. but i kept calm because if you are freaking out, other people around you are going to freak out and that is never okay. you have to stay quiet during stuff like that. and i am not going to lie, i was praying with my friend in the corner of the room just making sure everybody felt okay. >> and when did you know something terrible had happened? >> she actually text me immediately. they told me the shooting started at 2:35 and i received a text at 2:36. >> wow. >> yeah. so i put on the news and i am like let me see if this was for real. and it was on the news.

i immediately stayed on the news and i posted on social media so other people made aware. she continually texted me throughout the time. we were texting constantly back and forth. so she actually was keeping me calm. mom. everything is okay. i am okay, every so often. and once i saw they apprehended the shooter, now i know okay, it is safe now, so now they are taking their time going into each classroom to slowly get all of the students out. >> when were you finally able to reunite with your mom? >> it took a couple of hours. everything was blocked up. that is towards the direction of the school and they don't want anybody out there on their own. the area is somewhat dangerous

but i had to get a ride with a friend. and yeah. and i am with my mom now. >> what was it like it see your mom? >> my mom has lost a lot this week and i know she would have been worried to think that she would have lost me too if i wasn't constantly talking to her. you have to think about your family during this situation. >> that's all we have to hold on to sometimes. >> especially in a time like this you realize how important that is. >> i lost my mother just last week. >> oh my gosh. i'm so sorry. >> so to experience this, that's why, you know, for her to constantly keep in contact with me, it really helped. you know, my heart goes out to those 17 that lost their lives. i am glad my daughter is safe, but she lost friends.

she lost possibly a teacher. we don't know yet. so we are just waiting. but our heart goes out to each and every one of those family members. and i am ready to do. yes, i pray and i tell people to pray, but i tell people you need to move on those prayers as well. so i am just preparing whatever needs to be done. i'm there for them. >> well, i appreciate your time. and i am glad that you are both safe and glad you are together tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we are going to take a short break and we will have more on the events in florida when we con the. we'll be right back. each year sarah climbs 58,007 steps.

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i want to show you a text message that is indicative of a lot of text messages that were going back and forth.

a young woman texted her mom, i love you. if i don't make it. i appreciate everything you have done for me. 17 people have died. chris murphy putting the blame on where he works. >> this happens nowhere else other than the united states of america. this epidemic of mass slaughter. this scourge of school shooting after school shooting. it only happens here not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but as a consequent of our inaction. we are responsible. for a level of mass atrocity that happens in this country with zero parallel anywhere

else. as a parent, it scares me to death this body doesn't take itt of an event even earlier. colorado's columbine high school. with me now is author dave cullen, who wrote the book columbine. i've read it two or three times. it's an incredible read. it changed my whole perspective on this. nothing ever changes. i mean we talked about this. you've been on countless times, and it just -- nothing ever changes. >> it doesn't. that's what i can't -- i couldn't agree more with what he said. we don't do anything, and the gun thing is -- we've got to do something. but at least there i understand

the politics of it. some of the other things like screening for teen depression, that's easy. it's not political. it's really cheap. there's a one page form. it takes 30 seconds. it's highly effective. why don't we start there. >> you said studies show a lot of these shooters have depression. >> exactly. exactly. that's the greatest number of them. so the definitive report the secret service did where they studied all the school shooters for more than a 25-year period, and 78% had either suicidal attempts or had talked about attempting suicide. that's an astounding number. and this is in a situation where looking for profiles, they weren't all loners, they weren't outcasts. they weren't all white. they were all over the map from almost every single situation except almost all being male. nearly all of them had some kind of sense or failure or loss and depression. those were the only common

factors. >> how much is the desire for publicity or infamy part of this? it's one of the reasons we don't name them because that is part of it. but when you looked at the columbine shooters and that was an unusual one that you had two working together. they wanted that to be a mass casualty incident, even bigger. they had explosive devices. >> exactly. that's runs throughout almost all of these. but i think we get in trouble when we call it fame or infamy because people have difficulty understanding are they really out for that. when you really look at the profile of these people and they're desperate, they're people who feel unheard, who feel like failures. they feel small and insignificant. they're looking for some sort of success, for the world to hear them. so it's this kind of lashing out and feeling powerful and being heard and feeling like they're making an impact. so that's not exactly fame. >> right. >> but that's what we're talking about, someone who feels like

they really did something and who feels powerless in this moment. it's a moment of awe and power, and then we in the media provide the coverage. they're not really powerful unless they're heard and have that impact. >> also in your research, how much is known by other people in their orbit, their family members or friends? this guy, some of the social media posts that shimon prokupecz has seen are laying out, i've got an ar-15 and i want to kill people. >> that's kind of astounding that still happens. after columbine, the same secret service report found an astonishing number, i believe in the 70% or 80% had told people they were going to do it. several people had told multiple people. i was under the impression, i mean nobody has studied as closely since then, but that that number was dropping because it used to be kids always ass e assumed it was a joke because nobody did this. but after columbine and virginia tech and new town and all these,

the perception was more of these kids who did hear those things thought it might be realistic and did report it. it's really kind of astonishing to be hearing now that it was right out there on social media and nobody was turning them in because we have a huge number of foiled plots. a lot of those we don't hear about, but there's more plots that are foiled or whatever you want to call it, where authorities close in and arrest them before it happens than do happen. why that didn't happen here, i don't know. nobody sort of came forward. >> the other commonality in the aftermath of these, of course, is those who say, well, if this is not the time to talk about any kind of gun legislation or gun control -- i mean we hear that time after time, and then the moment passes, and of course nothing then is ever talked about. >> right. excuse me me for rolling my eyes there. i mean that is the most cynical tactic and so obvious, and it also falls apart where there are youtube videos now of famous victims and survivors of many of these people. i think connie sanders, you

might have had on, who is dave sanders daughter from columbine. >> dave sanders who pled out in columbine. >> who is a heroic teacher. his daughter, people have virginia tech, a whole lot of high-profile survivors have, you know, made videos saying, yes, we want this talked about immediately after. we are the victims, and we're not buying your argument. of course we want this. you know, we have fire drills in america right now because of a disaster, i believe it was in the 1950s, i think it was in a girls high school. but a lot of people got killed, so we had to do something. we started fire drills. now we take that for granted. most of the kinds of things we do now are because of reaction to something that happened. it's putting our head in the sand to say, oh, we can't do anything because that would be, quote, politicizing it. no, that's sensible. >> the book is columbine. i urge people to read it.

back now with our panel, the fact that the shooter was known to the school, that he'd already been expelled, and yet he was still able to get inside, take all these lives, we don't yet know how he was able to get this ar-15. >> sure. again, kind of what you guys were just speaking about, we've got to look at this on the continuum. you want civil liberties in this country, or you want to be safe. we want a little bit of both. unfortunately the way we can make people safe is a police state. we've got over 300 million weapons in this country. we have about 1 million sworn law enforcement officers, and if they work 365 days a year and work three shifts a day for 24 hours seven days a week, we can't possibly be there on-scene to protect everybody. think about it from this perspective. the shooter was expelled from school. schools are gun-free zones, but the shooter elected to come back to that school. we know there was a school resource officer there, but one resource officer for 3,000 students in a fairly large area. it's the same thing as an order of protection. you can go to the police department and get an order of

protection, require somebody who is harassing you to stay at least 100 yards away from you, 300 feet. but if that person shows up and doesn't want to honor that, how do you stop it unless you put a uniformed cop or fbi agent -- >> or armed teachers. >> or armed teachers, which some has made a strong case for because it's just difficult. what bad guys do, what evil people do, and what in this instance the mentally unstable that fall into that evil category do is take the path of least resistance just like water. so if they show up at a place and we want our school zones to not look like a prison com pound, that's where they're going to go. >> we're expecting a press conference from law enforcement sometime in the next few minutes. we're obviously going to bring that to you live. very close to the top of the hour already. phil, how significant is it that, first of all, the shooter did not take his own life, was not killed by law enforcement, and seems to be talking to authorities? >> that is significant to me. you look at a couple of issues

and i'll add one to that. the fact that he shot a bunch of people -- and i'm going to presume some of those people are individuals he didn't know. he clearly, in my mind, didn't intend to die in the incident. my first reaction to that as a former counterterrorism guy, is this someone who had a jihadist, a suicidal tendency? looking at what he did, going in, surviving the incident, shooting this many people at a high school he attended, when he posted those kinds of things on social media, my initial reaction is he had some kind of grievance that does not relate to the world i used to live in, the counterterrorism world. it's a grievance his family will know about, his friends on social media will know about. to pick up on james' point, it's a grievance you're going to look at and say how do you prevent somebody like that from a grievance that might affect a million kids from entering into a school zone? i don't think you can do it, anderson. >> julia, reporting the weapon

was an ar-15 rifle. any reason for those weapons to be available to citizens? obviously it's an incredibly popular weapon. >> no. it's not just me. it's international association of chiefs of police. it's people who are actually in law enforcement and think about ways to protect their communities. i don't know personally everyone on your panel. i would suspect that our political beliefs are a range of your four national security or law enforcement guests, and i think all of us are on the same page about the gun issue. so i now think that it's political not to talk about it and to not discuss ways in which we can minimize the risk to our communities when you get sort of broad bipartisan support to get a little bit smarter. no one's pretending that a law is going to solve everything s. but our job is to minimize risk to the communities we live in. >> yeah. >> and as that teacher said earlier on your show, her government has failed her. >> i want to thank everybody on

the panel. we're going to talk to you a little bit later. it's just about the top of the hour, 9:00 p.m. here on the east coast of the united states. 9:00 p.m. in florida. thanks for joining us. the breaking news tonight isn't new or novel unfortunately. it's a senseless tragedy we have seen time and time and time again. another deadly school shooting in another american town, another high school, another community shaken to its core by a shooter with a semiautomatic weapon. we're going to show you a cell phone video taken inside a classroom. we aren't going to play it over and over again, but it does show in a visceral way the unreality of this imaginable situation. >> holy -- [ gunfire ] >> oh, my god! [ gunfire ] [ screaming ] >> randi kaye is in parkland, florida, for us tonight. what have you been able to learn about how things played out? i should point out we're anticipating a press conference any moment and we m