need to start to address it. >> bret: thank you so much. thank you for joining us on this horrific night. at least 15 a dead in uvalde, texas. thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. hug your children. that's it for this "special report," fair, balanced and still unafraid as you look at the flags at half-staff at the white house. jesse watters is next. >> jesse: tonight we start with a fox news alert a shooting a town of uvalde, texas. >> 2:30 p.m. shooting incident uvalde school in texas. school has children that are in second, third and fourth grade. >> jesse: this is every parent's worst nightmare, children gunned down in their own school. the situation is still developing but texas governor greg abbott addressed the tragedy earlier. >> the shooter was saffold ramos, an 18-year-old male who

resided in uvalde. it's believed he abandoned his vehicle and entered into the robb elementary school in uvalde with a handgun and he may have also had a rifle that is not confirmed to the latest report. he shot and killed incomprehensibly 14 students and killed a teacher. mr. ramos, the shooter, he is -- he himself is deceased. and is believed that responding officers killed him. >> jesse: abbott would also add that the shooter killed his own grandmother in a domestic incident before entering the school. fox news national correspondent bill melugin updates us now with the latest. bill? >>

>> bill: jesse, good evening to you. i want to give you an idea of some of the heartache that parents are going through right now. we just wrapped up an interview with a father who is looking for his missing 10-year-old daughter. he provided this photo of her to us. this is 10-year-old anna bell guadeloupe a student here at robb elementary school. he has not had contact with her. is he looking for her right now. can you imagine the pain that dad is feeling right now not knowing in his little girl is okay or not and how so many other parents are feeling that exact same pain tonight. i just got off the phone with the mayor of uvalde, don mclaughlin he told me two of his employees just found out a short time ago that they lost loved ones in this mass shooting. again, 15 dead. 14 children, one teacher. the shooter dead as well. you take a look at this video. posted from social media just a short time after the shooting. it allegedly shows the shooter showing up on campus armed with some type of a firearm before he goes into the building. law enforcement telling us that he pulled up to the vehicle -- he pulled up to the school, abandoned his car. then went inside the school and just started shooting

indiscriminately. take a look at this video of kids evacuating the school as this was happening. keep in mind this school robb elementary is for second, third and fourth graders. that means for the most part these kids are going to be ages 7, 8 and 9. such a horrific thing to have to experience. more video of this awful shooting. the casualty count could go up higher tonight. multiple hospitals treating multiple victims of this mass shooting including multiple children in the er here at uvalde medical center. and back out here live, cbp sources telling us that a border patrol agent was actually struck by gunfire as he was responding to the school shooting as well. once the call went out. all law enforcement rushed here to try to help out. we don't know how serious that agent's injuries are. cbp wanted to point out their agents were not involved in any sort of pursuit preceding this mass shooting. there have been online chatter

and rumors there was immigration nexus or border patrol pursuit. wbp tells me that is absolutely not the case. however, one of their agents were struck by gunfire when they were responding in an effort to try and help. the mayor of uvalde tells me there is going to be a press conference at the fair plex grounds in the next 30 minutes or so. we are sending a camera over there. as soon as that press conference begins we will bring it to our viewers live. back to you, jesse. >> jesse: bill, did the political science who responded to the shooting, did they elim nativity the shooter inside the actual school itself or was the shooter on the run anywhere? >> bill: governor greg abbott law enforcement did exchange gunfire with that shooter and they were the ones that killed him. we don't know if it was inside the school. outside. we are still waiting for those details. hopefully we learn some of that information at this press conference kicks off in trainino

that and what's the first thing they looked for in a school shooting situation? >> well, good evening, jesse. the main focus for any law enforcement response on an active shooter event is to eliminate that threat as efficiently and as quickly as possible. that's what we train our officers here to do. i am confident that's what they did in texas: of course, there is very limited information that i can rely on right now. but, just the fact that law enforcement responded in a quick as manner as they could and eliminated that threat as quickly as they could, i can almost also guarantee you with 100 percent certainty they wish they were a little bit closer got there a little bit faster. but some real heroic work went into ending this today. tragic event but it's something we all train for.

one of those things we train for that we hope we don't ever have to do. >> jesse: are you trained to take the shooter into custody at all or is it just aim, fire? >> i think it's one of those incidents, jesse, the suspect is going to dictate our response. if he is still actively engaging people with a firearm at the time we show up, we probably won't take any extra time to make any verbal commands or give any announcements. if is he actively shooting, hence the name, we are going to begin to deliver deadly force in response to that threat. and, again, the effort is to end it as quickly as we can. with every shot that that suspect fires, we have to assume another life is going to be lost. so we're not going to stop and even hesitate for a few moments to give a verbal command if he is actively doing that. >> jesse: mike? >> yes, sir. >> jesse: thank you very much. right now we have to take to kamala harris the vice president who is speaking live on the shooting. >> comments about tonight which i will speak but i just first want to begin by saying a few

words about the tragedy that occurred today in yustled, texas. as many of you know, the reports of that -- it was a mass shooting at an elementary school. and the preliminary reports are that 14 children have been killed. and the details are still coming in and, of course, the president and i are monitoring the situation closely. so, while do know that there are parents who have lost children. families that have lost children. and their loved ones, of course. many others who may have been injured. so, i would normally say in a moment like this we would all say naturally that our hearts break, but our hearts keep

getting broken. you know, i think so many -- there are so many elected elect leadersin this room you km talking about. every time a tragedy like this happens, our hearts break. and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families. and, yet, it keeps happening. so, i think we all know and have said many times with each other enough is enough. enough is enough. as a nation, we have to have the courage to take action. and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again. so the president will speak more about this later. but, for now, i will just say to

the people of uvalde, please know that this is a room full of leaders who grieve with you. and we are praying for you and we stand with you. and it is difficult at a time like this to think about much else but i do look around this room and i know who is here. and i know this is a room full of american leaders who know and have the courage to take a stand. and so let us tonight, as we do every time we all get together, recommit ourselves to having the courage to take action. and so that does bring me to the leaders who are in this room and the leaders of apaics i want to thank chairwoman judy chew introduction former member of

apaics. >> jesse: that is kamala harris right there very emotional speaking out about school shooting down in texas. she says enough is enough and her heart is broken and it keeps breaking. let's turn to bret baier, anchor of "special report." bret, you are going to hear the president speak to the nation at 8:15 this evening. what do you. expect the president to say. >> bret: jesse, good evening, it's a lot of what you heard about kamala harris. much about the compassion and the pain from those 15 families and, again, we don't know that those are the final numbers. but 14 children, ages 7, 8, 9 killed. remember, that president biden was then vice president biden almost 10 years ago when sandy hook, the sandy hook massacre happened. 20 killed there. also an elementary school so he has dealt with something similar

and spoken about it before. what is interesting to see how much he goes into what the next steps are on this day. we saw the speech in buffalo and what he said and how he said it. this is a day of, obviously pain. and we spent a lot of "special report" talking about how as a society we're better than this. no matter where you are going to put it of democrat, republican, independent. this can't keep happening. it just can't. >> jesse: kamala harris, i think, said it well that enough is enough. but now the question is for the president, as you said, is he going to make a public policy pronouncement? he doesn't have all the details of the shooting. people are still being operated on in these trauma centers he doesn't know anything about the motivation of the shooter. the weapon, type of weapon. legal, illegal, everything. so i think it would benefit him, i think for the nation to just be measured the way kamala was measured and not just kind of

lurch into some very partisan rhetoric about guns. right now let's take a step back. do you think the president is going to be measured tonight? because there is an opportunity here to unite but there is also a real pit fall where he could divide even worse. >> bret: i agree with you, jesse. a dangerous political moment, i think. but it's also the compassionate empathizer in chief, if you will. and joe biden has played that role before. i think we will hear familiar lines of some of the other condolences he has offered. there will be some political element to it. he is coming off a trip to asia that did not go well politically. but this day is much bigger than that. as far as identifying with families and parents who, you know, look at this and say is my kid safe at school? you're right. it is politically dangerous if he goes down that road. especially from the white house. and we don't know where this speech will be delivered from.

whether from behind the oval office desk, the resolute desk in the oval office or somewhere else in the white house. but, it will have that gravity of a white house speech. and, in that, likely steers from some of the harshest political tones but i think you will get some of that in this speech. >> jesse: yep. stakes are high tonight. got to meet the moment. bret baier, thank you so much. >> bret: you bet. >> jesse: danny coal son is a former deputy assistant director of the fbi and he commanded and founded the fbi's hostage rescue team. danny, i imagine fbi agents are on the scene right now r ted .what's happening? >> it's kind of a tragedy isn't it. i want to commend i guess you had at swatted team commander from oklahoma, i think. he talked about what they do something much better is to have armed police officers inside the school protecting our kids. seven of my eight grandchildren

in texas of this age. we just gave $40 billion to ukraine. why don't we allocate money to protect our own citizens. to say put policemen in our schools to protect our children from these monsters. it's real -- i'm really angry about this. i'm saddened and frankly i'm a lot afraid. >> jesse: kellyanne conway on "the five" made an excellent point there were billions of dollars given to schools across the country for covid relief. that money has not been spent. that money is just sitting there waiting for spent. and i think maybe a common sense idea take some of that money, a couple billion would do it, and harden some of these soft targets, especially the elementary schools. because as we learn that a lot of the texas middle schools and high schools will have armed security guards there. but the elementary schools do not. and i think it would make a lot of sense to make sure that we have armed security agents there at least for one for every

elementary school in the entire country. it would be common sense, danny. >> it would be. i totally agree with that i was in a situation of rescuing people in situations like this. s it' a lot better to be inside keeping the bad guys off than trying to go and find the bad guys. why don't we do that? we have the money. and, one other thing that's important to remember the gun genie is out of the bottle. can you outlaw guns tomorrow. they are still out there. and we need to protect our need to have courage to bring in policemen that will risk their lives and save our children and put a stop to this stuff. stop it before they get through the front door. >> jesse: this guy reportedly had a handgun and a rifle. we haven't confirmed that yet. but it looked like some of that grainy footage indicated that there was a long gun involved. it's a very rural area. it sounds in south texas near the border. >> yes. >> jesse: i'm sure that's, you

know, every 18-year-old is probably fluent in firearms down there. it's just part of the way of life in south texas. so, as you said, you really can't do anything about access if the gun was legal. he was a psycho path. he killed his own grandmother and stormed into the second ago. that's going to be dangerous territory if you hear the president wander into that avenue tonight. i think there will be a lot more bipartisan agreement, i would assume, to strengthen and harden some of the soft targets. you could call it infrastructure. you could call it protecting the kid. do you see any reasonable why that would not happen just even in texas alone? >> well, we have the money to do it. another thing, jesse. it's really important, our mental health issues are in disarray. every time we have a shooting

like this, and i do a lot of research and i do a lot of training on this. it's some crazy guy. >> jesse: yeah. >> the world knows he is crazy. a lot of times police talk to him and they refer him for an evaluation. they give him a pill, send him home. he goes home and gets his gun and kills people. that's a common denominator here. congress is not addressing that our state legislature is not addressing that. we are so worried about offending somebody that we don't address people that are a threat to our society. it's scary. it's scary not only in schools and supermarkets, at the mall, wherever you go today you need to be very conscience of your surroundings. remember police are minutes away but seconds matter. it's up to you to protect yourself. >> jesse: absolutely. danny coulson, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> jesse: let's bring in fox news breaking correspondent trace gallagher who has the latest for us. >> trace: as we know the information like this always changes. what we know is texas governor

greg abbott has identified the shooter as 18-year-old salvador ramos a shooter at the local high school in uvalde. he allegedly killed his grandmother and then drove to robb elementary school. made his way on to campus some way. how exactly we don't know. and, of course, opened fire. and as you said earlier, we believe he had a handgun and a rifle. he killed 14 students. as well as one adult teacher. the school only has second, third and fourth graders. so we are primarily talking about 7, 8 and 9-year-olds. police say it appears that police killed the shooter but, again, in scenarios like this that are fluid. that also has not been confirmed. two other victims were taken to a children's hospital in san antonio. that's an indication that they were more severely wounded because san antonio children's is a level one trauma center about 85 miles away. their condition right now is unknown. other children, other victims were taken to local hospitals. uvalde authorities say this

school district has four resource officers but we do not know if any one of them, in fact, we believe that none of them were on the robb elementary school campus at the time. the district also says the school has fencing to keep people out. in fact, they sent out information about this fencing. but, if you look at the video. you will notice that there are police walking around on both sides of the fencing right there. it appears to be 4, maybe 5 feet high. really not high enough to keep anybody out. and if you look at the administration building, there are also gaps on both sides, pretty wide gaps that look like there is not one primary gate that students and visitors go in and out and are security checks. so the capacity of the fence is to keep somebody out. we don't know. and then, again, we don't know exactly how this shooter got on campus. the early reports said the shooting happened outside of campus. that turned out to be very wrong. it's also important to find out that this shooting is very

similar, jesse, to the worst primary school shooting in u.s. history that happened in newtown, connecticut adam alonzo zoo shot and killed his mom. went to sandy hook elementary school where his mom worked. he tried to use her i.d. to gain access but then shot out the front window. got inside. opened fire, 206 and 7-year-olds. the second shooting happened in nicklaus, texas where nikolas cruz walked in. he shot 17 people. that school did have resource officers as you will recall they were criticized for not going into the school and confronting the shooter. kind of going back. we should know robb elementary school two more days of school before summer. jesse. >> jesse: i do remember that the security guard who looked like he was cowering. and then we also found out the timing of the video surveillance was 20 minutes off. so they were getting bad intelligence as to where the shooter was.

just an absolute mess. >> trace: important to point out it changed policy. that whole thing changed policy. so now school resource officers and deputies, the policy now is that you go in as soon as there is a report of a shooter, you now go in and you confront the shooter. instead of waiting. the old policy was maybe you wait. no you go in and go after the shooter. >> jesse: all right. trace, thank you so much. stick around. a former sheriff's deputy for greenville county in south carolina. he is also the founder of proactive response group, an organization that provides active shooter and emergency response training. so what is your assessment of what we are seeing down here in texas this afternoon? >> jesse, it's absolutely devastating. i know people say that over and over again today. but it's time that we start investigating in the lives of these students. it's time that we get away from this check the box training that many districts across this country are doing. these events are happening at

alarming rate. in fact the fbi just released a stat the day before yesterday that said active shooter events are up 53% across the united states. so, we have to start evaluating the type of training we are doing. and looking at the early warning signs. i did some research earlier and there were early warning signs and the suspect that did this instagram post where is he supposed or taking photos of his rifles and the magazines and having communication with someone telling them hey, be ready for tomorrow. i'll get back with you. so we got to build a culture and present it in a way where people are comfortable coming forward, reporting this stuff. >> jesse: so fox hasn't confirmed that yet. but you are saying that you investigated this individual, this suspect salvador ramos and you have seen social media posts just within the last few days indicating that he was up to no good? >> yep. there is photos of two long guns and then a picture of a magazine, a high capacity magazine was that taken. and then he reached out on

instagram to a female who has now reported that she had no idea who this guy was. it was just a random female that he reached out to and kind of was prefacing letting her know hey, get ready, i'm going to -- i have got a big surprise i think is the world he put on his instagram message to her. >> jesse: that's unbelievable. you almost see this every single mass shooting event that there were clues missed by either family members, law enforcement, the school, random individuals. it really goes back to what we learned 9/11. if you see something, say something. because if you don't say something, someone is going to do something. and be it looks like that was the case here. >> yeah. i mean, i think the statistics are upward in the 95% range where someone knew that they were going to commit this attack and did not say anything. so we have to do a better job on what you said if you see something, say something. i honestly think this day and age people are afraid of being

the school snitch. and that's got to go out the window. we have 14 little children who have lost their lives today. and i'm devastated. but it goes back, jesse, we have to do a better job training, showing a 5 minute video at the beginning of the school year to the teachers is not getting the job done. >> jesse: it's not. don't worry about being a snitch when it comes to being a school shooter. >> exactly right. >> jesse: thank you so much. >> thanks, jesse. ♪ >> jesse: we have a fox news alert. we have updated some casualty numbers in texas. there are now 18 children and three adults confirmed dead. let's go back to bill melugin for more. >> yeah, jesse, unfortunately live that's the exact update we just got coming to us from texas dps. the brand new numbers the casualty count has gone up. we are told now 18 children dead. i am told two adults dead. the third adult would possibly

be the shooter in this incident. but, again, that would be 18 kids, two adults. we know at least one of them is a teacher. so, unfortunately, this casualty count continues to go up as we know other people are being treated at other nearby hospitals. we just got off the phone with the mayor of uvalde, texas. he told me two of his staffers just found out they lost children in this children. we spoke to a father a short time ago who told us he is looking for his 10-year-old daughter. her name anna bell guadeloupe rodriguez. she is a student here at robb elementary school. he hasn't had any contact with her. he is desperate to find her. he provided her photo to us as well as texas rangers. can you imagine the heartache is he feeling. that quick update unfortunately according to dps. the casualty count has gone up now 18 children. two adults confirmed dead at this shooting. >> jesse: we are informed there is a level one child trauma center pretty close by. do you know how close by the center is from the school?

>> bill: well, if that uvalde memorial hospital that should be very close it's within town. that is where a majority of the victims went to. others were taken to hospitals in san antonio. you can be sure that once paramedics got here and there were quite a lot of ambulances on scene they were taken to those hospitals quickly for quick treatment. unfortunately it is sounding like they either found more bodies inside or more people succumbed to their injuries while receiving care in the hospital, jesse. >> jesse: that's a horrible update. all right. bill. thank you. darrin porcher is a criminal justice expert and a retired nypd lieutenant. all right. darren, you just heard the latest. 18 children now deceased. your thoughts? >> this is a very unfortunate narrative; however, it keeps repeating itself. somewhat repetitive. as modern day law enforcement, we're really great on the response; however, the problem that we have is fortification and omni presence on soft targets such as this school.

as you spoke to, as you made mention to earlier, jesse, the school resource officers on many occasions are not equipped with firearms for these elementary schools. that needs to change. the dynamic of these mass shootings is becoming more and more prevalent in our society; however, we have our elected officials that come on television, they jump up and down but there is no execution strategy because we have a flawed purpose in how we protect these elementary schools. it goes back to why did we not have a police officer, meaning an armed resource officer at the front of this school? when we look at a lot of these mass shootings that have happened in many places throughout the country, it's the same thing. oftentimes bad guys will go the other way. when they see a good guy with a gun in front of a school. but, at the same tone we still don't get it i'm not saying that we need to arm these schools with sherman tanks, but, at the same token, we need to understand the narrative of our

school system is not been protected the way it should be. and, unfortunately, this is an example of how it manifests when we are unprepared. >> jesse: it's been reported there are three resource officers, a sign to this district but not to the school. so they may have been spread thin and we don't believe that they were actually on the premises. you see the fencing? i mean i could hop that fence. anybody could hop that fence. what good is it to have fence installed if it's 4 feet tall. >> infrastructure is important and it's clear when we look at the flimsy fencing in this particular school that things could have been done differently. oftentimes, this is subjected to budgets. whether we like it or not, unfortunately with public schools, they don't have the necessary budget to fortify themselves from attacks of this nature. and, what's even worse is law

enforcement views an attack of someone we refer to as a lone wolf in this particular instance as the most difficult to manage against. i heard your guest speak earlier social media post on instagram. i think it's great if social media companies creates analogy gori them that captures threats such as violence. i give you an example, jesse. if you put a threat ton social media where you were looking to assassinate the president and 20 minutes you have federal agents at your door. however, we don't have an algorithm in place to protect us as the common citizens. that's one component when we look at collaborative we need to fortify the omni presence that oftentimes deter bad guys. when you spoke to that fence, that's only one component but far more multifaceted than just the fence. >> jesse: you are right it is multifaceted and we have a lot of work to does a country to figure this out. thanks a lot, darren. as this tragic scene unfolded

today, parents were left scrambling to find their children outside of the school. including this concerned father. listen. >> i have got-my daughter was at the school where there was shooting. and i wait for more details and nobody has called me back on the detail and now i come back in town looking for my daughter and i can't find her now. i'm going crazy. i don't even know how to talk no more. nobody knows where my daughter is at right now. >> jesse: dana loesch nationally syndicated radio host. it just breaks your heart, dana. it breaks your heart to see these parents struggling like that and just pain and anguish not knowing where their child is. >> i'm absolutely heart sick over, this jesse as are so many people around the country. there has been a lot of really good discussion as we await further fact which i want to

caution everyone. you do such a great job at this. we wait for things that are confirmed before we make sen sessionallists comments about it. because it doesn't help especially when we are trying to find a solution. there has been a lot of the good discussion about what kinds of security precautions were in place what the law allows and doesn't allow. as we await more details you mentioned a 4-foot high fence. i have so many questions as i'm sure some other people do. do were the doors locked? was there anyone watching the perimeter, what kind of security protocol is in place? you don't have to have a huge budget. and a lot of money to do some basic things that actually aren't seen that can be really really good preventative security measures that can keep students safe. i think we all want answers about this as well as maybe do a little inventory of what we can do within our own schools to make sure that our own students, our kids are also safe.

>> jesse: texas has pretty strong laws school grounds. you can't be holding a weapon close to any school, can you, in texas? isn't that a violation? >> it's a violation of federal law because of the gun-free zones act. so you can't have a firearm within a thousand feet of a school, whether it's a private or public school. you can't have a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school. additionally, texas also passed stricter penalties with any weapons crimes that are committed. around schools within that zone as well. so, there is an additional -- there is stricter penalties. furthermore, to clear up some of the confusion that i see from some politicians out there, no constitutional carry nor any kind of conceal carry permit does not allow anyone to bypass what is state and federal law. in fact, the texas guardian program, many schools, i mean, the schools across texas, they require even special written permission for them to even conduct exercises as part of the guardian program. so there are very strict laws, established laws.

and the biggest one is murder is illegal, obviously. but, also, 18-year-olds can't run around with handguns. i know we are waiting to get more information. >> jesse: yeah. >> i know greg abbott. that's something that governor greg abbott said we don't know about any of the other firearms that have been speculated upon. so i'm not commenting upon that there is a lot of things -- we got questions. we know some of the security protocols. we have questions about that. we know what laws were in place and what weren't. texas has really strong laws to answer your question on that, jesse. >> jesse: and we're awaiting a press conference right now for more details and we're going to bring that to you in a second when it hits. there is an nra convention this friday in texas. we believe ted cruz will be there. donald trump will be there. greg abbott will be there. what would you like to see said at that convention? >> well, goodness, i haven't worked with the organization in a few years now. buff i don't even think -- i don't think that law abiding people have to answer for what criminals do.

and that's something that is unfortunate. these are discussions that really shouldn't even be political. these are discussions that should focus on some of the things that we have already discussed and your guests have discussed. basic common sense security measures that we can implement in schools regardless of budget there are a number of groups out there that can also even -- they do it pro bono. they can do sweeps of the school and determine what weak points are. what they are and what they aren't. quick note on this. i know that there has been a lot of pressure, i hate even putting it in political terms like this. there has been a lot of pressure from democrats against what they see is turning schools into prisons. we have really strict security at concerts, jesse. and i don't look at concerts as being prisons. we have very strict security more so than many schools have at concerts, at banks, at museums, as festivals, none of those things are regarded as prisons. why are we not viewing protecting our children, our most valuable asset in a similar passion fashion? there are ways to do it where it's not like a prison like

anything else. but in terms of what i hope is said. i hope that people realize that law abiding don't have to answer for the acts of criminals. i think we can band together to find a solution on this. >> jesse: here here, thank you as always. >> thanks, jesse. >> jesse: law director of faster colorado, an organization that trains armed school staffers. so, laura, we mentioned it already a few times. there is a $100 billion that was sent to the schools for covid that has not been spent yet. $100 billion. do you think some of that money could be used for better training? >> yeah. jesse. you look at this and say it happens over and over and over again it's not a surprise that these things keep happening. whether it's covid money being used to better protect schools, armed staff programs like what we do here in colorado that are very, very low costs because these are people that already

work they get extensive training to children. what it comes down to nobody was there to protect those children. whether there was a school resource officer somewhere else in that school district. they were not there to protect those little 7, 8 and 9-year-olds. wherever the resources come from this is a property. we have to stop letting these schools be gun free zones where nobody, the bat guys know nobody is there to protect the children someone in texas needs to be held accountable for leading that school into a shooting gallery. there has to be an adult there to protect those kids. explain exactly what the policy is or the program is in colorado? how does it work? is like a gym teacher or math teacher do they volunteer and step up to say hey i would like to go through some training and armed against something happens? how does that work? first of all the school board

school board has to have intentional policy. by the way this has been a law in colorado for the last 18 or so years. the school decides how many people do we need and they are absolutely all volunteers. nobody forces anybody to to be armed. but it could be the principal, the teacher, the janitor, the bus driver, the lunch lady. we have had a lunch lady and school nurse in our program. then they have to get really extensive training and that's what we do at faster colorado, our instructors are all active duty law enforcement instructors. exactly the type of people that you want training these defenders to protect our children if god forbid something like this happens in their school what would you till the viewer at home that is not familiar with firearms? maybe they grew up in east coast city? it's not a part of their family. it's not their world? and they get nervous around weapons? they say i don't want a gun in my child's school what would you

tell them? >> couple of things, jesse. we all feel comfortable with the armed pilot thing. some pilots are armed on some flights and don't know which ones. we feel good about that. it's a very similar kind of thing armed school staff programs. the other thing is that somebody has to defend those children. and is as long as there are good training like what we have at faster colorado. faster saves lives in ohio has really excellent training by law enforcement. they should feel really, really good about that. and, by the way, in armed staff programs nationwide, there has never been an injury to any staff member or student and research shows this is according to crime research.org there have been zero school shootings with schools with armed staff programs. it works. it's out there. it's very inexpensive. here at faster colorado and in ohio faster saves lives.

we would all be happy to walk any school districts nationwide through how we do this here. and the other thing, jesse there is deck nothing that helps law enforcement get there quicker. life spot app., for example here in colorado. a lot of our schools use that. but it's very inexpensive and we don't know yet because it's still fog of war, obviously, how long it took law enforcement to get there. if we could have shaved 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes off of that could more lives have been saved? and this has to be a priority. i know schools are busy right now. there is graduation going on. this is a priority. this is our children's lives, jesse. >> jesse: yeah. it's -- the program is inexpensive and it works. i think that's a pretty persuasive argument. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> jesse: we're still awaiting a press conference from texas and meanwhile james gagly an know fbi special agent served on the

fbi's elite hostage rescue team sending threatening messages. is that something the fbi is locked in on? >> you know, cigarettesy, the problem is we live in a country where we cherish our civil liberties, right? our privacy protections and right to free speech and you balance that with security. have always said if you give law enforcement the opportunity to impose martial law we can guarantee safety and security. but there is -- this country is 327 there is only 27,000 police officers and fbi agents. even if we put every single law enforcement officer on this, the worldwide web is such a vast space and even if you get on there and somebody says something that you could interpreted to be inflammatory or inciteful or dangerous, the

problem is people say things in the heat of the moment. you've got satire. you've got reckless rhetoric that people can engage in and say look, i was just kidding or i didn't mean it, really. so the problem is you can't put a cop on every corner. it's very, very difficult. jesse, i think the biggest thing here is and i think some of your other guests spoke to this. bad guys take the path of least resistance. you can't go to a major sporting event out when being wanded and patted down and having security pretty much in every section. why do we have schools today that are not hardened? single point entry, armed school resource officers. bad guys go where there's a path of least resistance. jesse, this clearly looked like a case of that. >> jesse: and from a swat team perspective, explain how critical each second is when you are responding to something like this? >> great question. so, the very first mass shooting in a school that we look at from

the swat perspective because it creative swat in the united states was the charles wittman shooting at the texas clock tower august 1st, 1966. that was 56 years ago. and austin police officer and i believe a campus resource officer were the two guys that climbed the tower and ended up shooting charles wittman. a lot of symmetry there. he had killed his mother. he came back from vietnam and had some ptsd. we have come a long way since then. but then we get to columbine in 1999. in 1999, the protocol and i was a member of the fbi's hostage rescue team at the time was we wait until we have a who who ime news unit to enter. that changed after columbine 30 to 40 minutes law enforcement was gathering and coming up with a perfect plan in the parking lot. we have learned go to the sound of the guns we still haven't got

continue right o2015 the pulse nightclub shooting the law enforcement waited a long time. situation in parkland where you talked about that sheriff's deputy that refused go in. law enforcement has to go in and interdict these shooters. when they go into schools, they are not looking to take hostages. they are looking to go in there and ratchet up body counts. i think we are reporting now 18 children dead and three adults. what a horrific day in uvalde, texas. >> jesse: yeah. if you see something, say something. you got to go in lightning fast. and you have to have armed officers in the school and the school has to be hardened. it's not that hard. we figured it out. and now it's up to the politicians to get it done. thank you so much, james. >> thanks, jess. >> jesse: vice president kamala harris spoke about the horrific texas shooting this hour. urging the nation to take action. listen. >> enough is enough. enough is enough. as a nation, we have to have the

courage to take action. and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again. >> jesse: kellyanne conway is the former counselor to the president and author of "here's the deal." i'm not going to criticize what she just said. she came out and didn't politicize it her thing was emotional. everyone that. the president is going to speak at 8:15 tonight. it's a big test for him. what do you think he is going to say. >> actually vice presidents normally don't get ahead of the president if they are going to make a prime time address from the oval. i think it's completely irrelevant that staff in the house is angry. we are all angry and outraged and more than that saddened. that will come out in the next few days. the president has a very high bar tonight. right now the country doesn't have faith in him. they don't think is he competent

and compassionate. senator joe biden than president joe biden which is much more congenial and much more bipartisan when he needed to be. and to understand that presidents as president trump did when parkland happened on valentine's day that year, that the first show the empathy that you are grieving as a community. you called the governor and local officials. you are thanking the first responders, the teachers, the parents. nothing could ever bring your children back. you have to really dig deeply. the other thing that president trump said that i think is important is the resolve of what the federal government can do and cannot do. so, going to work with the state and local authorities. you are going to work with the attorneys general. you are going to get to the root causes of what happened here. but not to say too much, jesse. because if you say too much, you are like anybody else just on tv speck a little. >> jesse: right. >> you can't do that we will see if joe biden can match the moment. so far the country has not really seen him be able to do that. and, i have to say, president trump, after parkland, came -- he dispatched department of

education, justice, homeland security and a couple of other departments. come up with a commission on school safety standards. they produced an entire report. the liberals mocked it. they don't want to look at it they called it racist. >> jesse: what was in that report? there were a lot of strong recommendations. >> having people criticize him for he wanted certain teachers that were able to that were qualified and wanted to be armed to be armed. >> jesse: just heard from the previous guests in the school districts that have that >> covid money and harden the targets. >> jesse: texas where law enforcement officials have update. >> chief of police pete. >> i don't see you. >> would you like me -- let's do

this again, pete. >> sure. >> i apologize. did i not realize we were not on and you probably could not hear what i'm saying. i'm the executive director of communications and marketing for uvalde iisd. this is a tragic time in our district. please know the investigation is not complete. we will only be sharing a statement with you. not providing questions. we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding. here to share a statement and not take questions is our uvalde cisd chief of police pete. >> thank you. good evening. again, briefly, as of now, we are still working on this active investigation. once we are able to provide information to the families, we will do so. first and foremost, obviously. our priorities is to get information to our families and give them some information. so, please bear with us in regards to that secondly, once

we do get some information that we can release to the public, we will be doing that please know once we do get some information we will share that with you and call another press conference. let me me assure you the intruder is up deceased and we are not actively looking for another individual or any other suspects in this case. we definitely ask you all to keep the family -- the families that are involved in your prayers. thank you so much. >> here to provide the statement and not take any questions is our superintendent dr. howell herrell. >> good evening. this was a tragic and senseless event today. and my heart is broke today. our hearts and thoughts and prayers are with all our families as we go through this day and days to come. a few announcements that we need to make is beginning tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. we will have grief counseling and support members

anybody that needs to come at that time and we may be more than one day. may be there several days. our rob staff will meet at 8:00 a.m. at the civic center as well. we will begin visiting with them and seeing what those needs are school will be closed. the school year is done. we will have no school tomorrow or thursday. all activities are canceled throughout the district. no graduation is on people's minds. we will come out with a notice on that at a later time. all the staff members, they will report to their campuses other than rob campus which will come to the civic center. again, my heart was broken today. we're a small community. and we need your prayers to get us through this. thank you. >> again, this is a tragic event

in our community, we are very sorry that we cannot provide you more information but greatly appreciate your patience and understanding during this very difficult time. we ask that you pray for all of the families affected. thank you and be safe. >> jesse: okay, so not much of an update there. we learned that, again, the shooter is deceased. he has been eliminated. they are not searching for another shooter. school has been canceled for the rest of the year. and there will be grief counseling for the people that need it. let's bring in ken paxton, the texas attorney general. all right. it's a really tough day. i'm sorry for the great state of texas and all the families that were affected and all the children, obviously. why wasn't a school safety officer on location at this elementary school, ken? >> you know, schools have choices and some of them have limited resources. i don't think we know the answer to that yet. we have certainly created the

opportunity in texas for that to happen. we have also created a guardian program that was created, i believe in 2009 by the texas legislature which would allow teachers and other people that work at the school to train so that they would be armed. the rule, the general rule in texas is you can't carry a firearm into a school unless you satisfy the requirements of this guardian program. and that's voted on by individual school districts. it's not forced on them by the legislature at this point. so i think those questions have to be continued to be asked. why doesn't every school district have that and i don't know the -- i don't know the answer as to why any school district would not find a way to defend their children. >> jesse: if it's up to each individual school, i mean, that's on the school. not that they tore blame, but it's -- that's their decision. and maybe it shouldn't be their decision. maybe it should be mandatory across the board. have you been updated with any new information that you can share with us tonight? >> yeah, mostly what is happening right now is i think

they are trying to inform the families and they are trying to keep information, specific information about which people are deceased and other details until family members are informed. so, i think until those family members are actually informed personally, i don't think you're going to get specific details on all of the events that happened today. >> jesse: yeah, that's probably the right call. you heard a guest -- i don't know if you were watching earlier, he reported that the guy's social media page was disturbing. that this was a premeditated thing. and he was posing with weapons. he was sending threatening direct messages. is there anything that you know about the shooter that you could share with us? >> no. i mean, we don't -- i don't think we know much about the shooter. the shooter is now deceased. there is lots of information that's not obvious. couldn't be questioned. so we are going to have to piece this together. i think the main thing to focus on here is what can we do? we are not always going to catch -- obviously people can be trained to notice the warning

signs. but, ultimately, schools are going to have to have access points that are very limited and have to have people trained at the school whether it's police officers, who have been trained in that line of work or they are going to have to start training under this guardianship program. every school is going to need to do that and every school district is going to have to decide if they want to protect their children or we are going to continue to see this happen. i'm not saying we can stop every one of these. but we cannot have law enforcement get there fast enough to prevent this many people from being deceased had we had armed people in the building we might have prevented some of this. we might have prevented all of it. >> jesse: i agree a lot more we can be doing. after this people will do more. ken paxton. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> jesse: joined now fox news chief breaking news correspondent trace gallagher with the new details. what have you got? >> trace: jesse, clarify a couple of things. you see at the bottom of the screen, 18 children, two adults killed. break down from bill melugin who spoke to the department of public safety. it is 18 children. it is one adult teacher and the

shooter. so, there are 20 total people who have died today. but we don't really count the shooter in the death toll of that so 18 children, one adult is what we are being told by bill melugin who is down at the scene. we just talked to the attorney general there and it's interesting because you are getting clarity from different people and one of the state senators, his name is rolland gutierrez, he is a democrat. he says and he went out publicly and said that the shooter that we now know, of course, as -- well we will get his name in a minute. salvador ramos the shooter bought two assault rifles on his 18th birthday. for clarity we have not gotten any confirmation that these were assault rifles. you are looking for law, those two assault rifles in texas you can buy a long gun on your 18th birthday. can you buy them under the age of 21. the governor of texas, greg abbott reported that he went into the school with a long gun. a rifle and a handgun.

you cannot buy a handgun under the age of 21 in texas from a licensed gun dealer. you can buy a handgun from a texas citizen. that's a private sale. so we don't know the genesis of this. but, just for clarity on what we are doing. when you look at the death toll there, we should also note, jesse, that this now becomes the second deadliest shooting in u.s. history. and we don't know if the numbers are going to change. the first deadliest shooting would be of course in newtown, connecticut, almost well, almost 18 years ago, in newtown, connecticut where you had 27 people killed. you had 206 and 7-year-olds. will mother of the shooter alan zoo arrested for this when he broke into the window at the elementary school there in sandy hook. and he shot and killed those students. just trying to get together the facts here. you talked about social media with one of your guests.

we are doing this social media footprint investigators are all over the social media footprint. and they are trying to figure out to make sure, first and foremost. if, in fact, that this alleged shooter, salvador ramos, was in fact the same person who had these long gun pictures as your guest said earlier and was sending these bizarre messages to a female. we had pulled up the same information but trying to confirm that it is the shooter is an entirely different ballgame. and we want to make sure that we're not just first but that we are also accurate in the information that we give out. but, you see it there on the screen. you have 18 children, one adult. now the second deadliest shooting in u.s. history. the deadliest shooting in texas history and the information is still coming in and you can believe me, it will change again. we were at columbine, jesse, for three and a half weeks back when it happened. and the information was changing two and three weeks later. so, you know, information in

this type of atmosphere and this fog of war, as you might call, it is always in change mode. >> jesse: you would know better than anybody these things change fast in a shooting like this. trace gallagher, thank you so much. ted williams is fox news contributor and nationally renowned trial and civil attorney. just a horrible day for texas for the country and your thoughts on what we have seen today and what have you heard so far? >> you know, jesse america is crying, i'm crying. it's hard to believe in this country it we would have these i grew up one state before texas. i grew up in lake charles, louisiana, we on a daily basis went to school, we had nothing that we were daily concerned

about. that was one time and now we are living in a stage and age where we have to try to find a way to protect our children. and i have listened over and over here tonight of individuals on your show talking about the fact that we need to have a proactive system than a reactive system. if we don't, the lawmakers don't get up off their butts and do something to protect these schools, i heard abbott there, and what he said was in essence that you have schools that have their own security system. the state needs to do something. the state needs to be mandatory. they need to be proactive. we have got to do something, jesse, to protect our young. 18 of our young people are not going home tonight. those were kids who were hugged.

and the parents took them to school, saw them get on a bus or saw them walking down the street. those kids are no longer with us. i bleed, i cry for those students. and we need to make sure that this does not happen again, jesse. >> jesse: i agree, you can't really leave it up to a school administrator to decide in each individual school district. i'm going to do this this way. i don't like guns. i'm not going to do that in this situation. these guys come in and out, you know, they leave after five years, you get a new one. it has to be a state system where the state says this is how it's going to be. we're going to protect our children. they're there is going to be one individual who have a weapon within the school. they will be well-trained and that's it. because you can't leave it up to some person to decide we're not going to protect the school the way they did if there. 20 seconds, go ahead, ted. >> you know, you are absolutely

right. we need trained individuals at those doors. if we had a trained security officer at that door, he may have been able to keep from happening what has happened here tonight. >> jesse: if the shooter had known that the guy was armed, he might not have chosen that target. tucker is up next. the president is speaking at 8:15. have a good >> tucker: this is a fox news alert as we open our hour tonight, very sad news from uvalde, texas, city of 60,010 miles from the mexican border. a teenager walked into an elementary school, shot and killed 18 students and one adult, police responded and killed the shooter who has been identified as 18-year-old salvador ramose, joe biden expected to speak in just a few moments from where we hope in a respectful and nonpartisan way.