descent. >> he jumped in a stolen suv and blasted his way to the police line. they believe he's still in the watertown area. right now over 300,000 residents are sheltering in place here in watertown, cambridge. train service between boston and providence has been shut down. airports under tight security. authorities trying to cut off any avenue of escape from a man they deem extremely dangerous. wanted not only in bombings of course monday but the bloodshed that occurred today. it started overnight at m.i.t. after a robbery. the ambush and murder of a police officer. the chase that led here. right now s.w.a.t. teams are going down neighborhoods not only trying to clear explosive ordnance left behind in the chase but for the suspect himself. i want to share with you a

resident in this area who sent a quote. heavy armed police just came to our house and took our info. they said the bomb squad is working through our street. they told us to lock the doors and stay inside. folks here largely heeding that warning to stay inside. call 911 if they see anybody or somebody comes to their door. police and hospital officials had a number of news conferences overnight. we want to play some of that for you right now. here it is. >> where there was an exchange of gunfire between watertown police, m.i.t. police officer and two suspects in this suv. in the exchange of the gunfire, we believe that one of the suspects was struck and ultimately taken into custody. a second suspect was able to flee from that car and there was an active search going on at this point in time. what we're looking for right now is a suspect consistent with the

description of suspect number 2, the white capped individual. >> two of my faculty actually lived close to where the events occurred in watertown. heard the sounds of shots and explosions and notified our emergency department that there was obviously something happening. >> we are asking you to stay indoors, to stay in your homes for the time being. >> reporter: want to show you right now a picture of the activity that's going on door to door. armored vehicles, s.w.a.t. teams working their way through neighborhoods and in some cases we've seen shields up and guns drawn as they work their way around trying to find this suspect. not only do they believe he's armed. they're also concerned that he may be wearing or carrying explosives. apparently his brother, the one that was killed, had explosives on his body when they found him. two main concerns here. getting that suspected rounded up and making sure they have secured and disarmed any other

explosive devices that may have been thrown in the path of that police chase which led them here to watertown. >> that's why they have so many residents sheltering in place this morning. roughly 300,000 people in the community who have been told just stay indoors while authorities try to get to this situation and find this suspect apprehend him and make sure that any explosive devices are now harmless. let's get to nbc's justice correspondent pete williams who has the latest on the suspects and the investigation. pete, good morning again to you. >> reporter: good morning, savann savannah. we've been told the names of these told. we're told that they're brothers. they've been in the united states for at least a year. one of them was living in the cambridge area. we're told that the man with the white hat, the one on the left, the one who is still at large, the one who is the reason for all of this police activity and this extraordinary lockdown in

boston and the suburbs is 19 year old tsarnaev. he has a massachusetts driver's license. is a resident of cambridge. we don't know the first name of his brother. they obviously came here many months ago, at least a year ago. the other thing is it bears repeating, savannah, that all this started thursday night not because the fbi was moving into arrest them. there was no tactical operation planned. five hours after the fbi showed their pictures. they were not about to arrest them. five hours after the pictures became public, they apparently decided to make a run for it and that's when all of these events began to unfold with the robbery of the 7-eleven and shooting of a campus policeman and all of these other activities that led us to where we are now.

it's been quite clear to authorities that they have been in the u.s. for some time. we're told they have some foreign military experience. we believe that they were coming here from overseas because earlier this morning the boston police commissioner said the one who is still at large, we believe this to be a terrorist. we believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people, savannah. >> pete williams with the latest on the suspects. thank you very much. we'll ask you to standby and we want you to play you a piece of videotape as it unfolded in the middle of the night. it's not what you can see, but what you can hear. take a

>> that was the scene from earlier this morning. as you hear witnesses reported several minutes of gunfire. you also hear the sound of explosives. i want to bring in don, a former special agent with the fbi specifically the joint terrorism task force. now a security consultant. let's restart. we've been together all morning. when you looked at the surveillance video, when you hear what pete williams is reporting about their backgrounds, what leaps to mind? what do you think we can

ascertain from those facts? >> these guys had a plan. when i saw the video, seemed like they knew what they were doing. they were moving with a purpose. they were calm. it eerily reminded me of the mumbai attacks. you can't tell too much from the brief videotape that we saw that was released to the public but it appeared they were calm and moving with a purpose. >> we now have a name and putting together a bit of a background. at least one of them was a legal permanent resident who had a massachusetts driver's license. there is a long and sad history of strife in chechnya and acts of terrorism. >> you have to look at that original of terrorism. this is where we can't jump to

conclusions yet. we're going to be relying on our foreign intelligence partners in russia and turkey because it was believed these men lived in turkey. we want to find out do they come from a lineage of terrorists. do they have military training. we'll try to learn as much as possible from our foreign partners. >> we want to be transparent about what we know and don't know this morning. when people hear of it being a foreign terrorist, they obviously start thinking of terrorist groups such as al qaeda. we don't know whether or not this is an act of two people who were ordered by some centralized organization to do this or whether or not these are two men who decided to come here on their own perhaps inspired by the ideology and decided to try to do as much damage as possible. do you see any facts as we know them that cut in either direction? >> right now i wouldn't weigh

either side. it could be that these guys were brothers and they were living together and they could have concocted this plan on their own without any direction from any overseas group or conversely they could have had some kind of a direction from overseas. they could have been planted living here for a year, plotting this out and given an order to do this at a special event like the marathon. we just don't know yet. the investigation will determine that down the road. >> all right. stand by. i'll bring in michael. you were there in the room when the bin laden operation was conducted. mike, can you hear me? are you with me? i think mike does not have us. i'll turn back -- i think we got you, mike. are you with me? >> i hear you, savannah. sorry about that. bouncing back and forth. >> i see you looking at your blackberry probably pulsing the system trying to get more information. i want to get your impressions

now that we're starting to get more of a picture of these two suspects. >> first of all, as i think we've all been trying to stress, so much of this information is preliminary. what we're starting to see is a pretty well planned meticulous ongoing threat and shutting of these whole localities unprecedented since 9/11. the connections to chechnya will be concerned to a lot of people. the level of violence between separatist and russia is well known for the past several years. these are exactly the things that the fbi and people will dig through to try to build a really full profile of one dead perpetrator and the other suspect. >> it appears according to pete williams reporting that these are two men who had some kind of overseas military training and we've been remarking upon how they appear in this video to the

extent you can tell anything by surveillance video but to put it lightly they were two cool customers. >> well, they are. and i think it's fair to say the cooler they are, the more careful the fbi and boston police are going to go about this. that's why you see massive swaths of boston community getting shut down. having lived there for four years, the thought of these communities with no public transit and the universities, this gives you a window into how seriously officials are taking this. they are absolutely assuming there are more improvised explosive devices out there and they have to be incredibly careful now. >> i will ask you to standby as i ask all of our guests as we watch this unfolding situation and to bring people up to date this is a live situation in watertown, massachusetts, which is the center of a massive manhunt for a 19 year old who is

said to be of chechnyian origin. the man in the black hat is his brother and was killed overnight in a dramatic shootout with police. an m.i.t. police officer was killed during these events as was a transit officer. we want to show you an interview conducted earlier this morning by my colleague with a man named andrew kitzinberg. >> reporter: you posted the video of the bomb detection robot an hour ago. is there still a bomb squad on the scene looking for additional explosives? what's the scene like right now? >> i was just back at the window. this window leads out to the

stre street. as i look right now, the bomb squad robot is actually in the passenger door, in the driver's seat door inspecting. >> andrew, would you be able to show us that. do you feel comfortable walking your computer to the window. i won't open the window but i'll walk it here and. it's angled right now at the bomb squad robot. >> you thinks it's a robot looking through that car. one of the cars that these two suspects were standing near when they had this firefight with police and throwing these explosives and you say this robot appears to be looking for more explosives inside that car. you say that they left things behind, is that correct? >> yeah. they left what looks like two or three backpacks and bags right next to that sedan and the bomb

squad officers have yet to touch that. they have been very, very careful in this area. the bomb squad robot has been there for at least a half hour now going door to door on the car doors inspecting it and they have yet to look into the backpacks. >> an interview earlier this morning with a witness who had the vantage point where the gunfight took place over the night and was subsequently evacuated by s.w.a.t. officers is said to be okay. matt lauer is covering another breaking story in the town of west, texas. that huge explosion of a fertilizer plant there. we'll check in with matt for the latest on that in a moment. as i turn to al and natalie as we watch this extraordinary moment. i know you are tracking developments. >> we're trying to obviously an abundance of caution because there's so much information on the internet right now and until we know more, pete williams has shown us that you have to be very careful with all of the

information you see on the social networks out there right now. >> one thing that's always reliable is al's forecast. let's do the weather. >> we have had a lot of changeable weather going on. in fact, we were telling you about the rain yesterday. parts of the midwest, chicago, over 5.5 inches of rain in one day. that's more than they usually get for the month of april. right now we have flood warnings. river flood warnings and flash flood warnings in effect for much of the midwest and there's more rain going on. you can see it pushing toward the east and so we are looking at a risk of severe weather along the southeastern atlantic coast. rainfall amounts generally about a tenth to a half inch but some areas will be picking up along the southeastern atlantic coast up to an inch of rain. we're also getting reports of levee breaks along river banks in the chicago area. we'll continue to track that as well. we'll get your local forecast in just a moment. first, this message. before the three- and four-star ratings... before local farmers and employees became secret ingredients...

before rock star chefs were playing to packed houses every night... two restaurateurs sat down with our banker and transformed some chicago neighborhoods into culinary meccas. that's the power of connecting a vision into a recipe for success. that's bank of america. >> and that's your latest weather. >> we'll have much more on this developing situation in boston

and the latest on the explosion at a fertilizer distribution center in the town of west, texas. matt is there live with the latest. first, this is "today" on nbc.

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knew we were there. his mother and i were with him. he actually tried to talk and we

figured out that he was worried about the breathing tube, he wasn't sure what that was about and we told him everything's all

we continue to follow breaking news out of boston. the city of watertown is in lockdown right now. the city of boston also in a state of paralysis as police search for a 19-year-old suspect in . . . the city of boston is in paralysis. a 19-year-old suspect in the attack. the man identified as 19-year-old jokarzdzoakar is his

brother shot and killed in a shootout with police earlier this morning in watertown, massachusetts. we'll continue to monitor this unfolding situation. good morning. i'm savannah guthrie. matt is in the town of west, texas, this morning where we're following another huge story. the powerful explosion that left that town devastated. >> more than a day later now and officials are still determining the scope of the damage and the death toll after that massive blast at a fertilizer a scene of grief and sadness grips the town of west, texas. it took only seconds but this small community was forever changed on wednesday. first responders were on the scene of the west fertilizer company facility after a fire broke out. then the unexpected. an enormous explosion with the force equivalent of a 2.1

magnitude earthquake. you have taken a huge hit. >> i'm afraid we have. i don't know the exact numbers. it's not good. >> smoke, flames and poisonous gas ripped through the air blowing out windows and engulfing houses, an apartment complex, two schools and a nursing home. it's wrath spanning several blocks. >> the apartment complex looks like a bombing site of an explosion, the kind that you see in baghdad. >> mayor tommy muska was on his way to the location when the explosion occurred. he and his family are safe but his fellow firefighters have been hard hit. how does a fire company deal with something like this? >> we'll fight back like we always do. >> the west fertilizer company was storing as much as 54