and covering the local perspective of this deadly shooting. >> head to www.nbcbayarea.com for local coverage as well. now, back to the "today" show for the latest on this breaking story. good morning. breaking news. a gunman opens fire in an outdoor concert in las vegas. more than 50 people kill and 400 others wounded. the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history. the gunman is 32 floors up at the mandalay bay resort firing down on a terrified crowd. the shooter is stephen paddock. >> he killed himself prior to the entry. in excess of 10 rifles. >> describing moments of pure panic. >> there were shots going everywhere. there were dead people everywhere. >> two guys were carrying a girl

or somebody that was all bloody and looked like they had been shot. >> live with complete coverage october 2nd, 2017. >> announcer: this is a special edition of today, deadly las vegas shooting with matt lauer and savannah guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. good morning, everyone and welcome to this special edition of "today" on this monday morning. it's 10:00 on the east coast and 7:00 out west. where do we begin? we are covering the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history. >> it's hard to gather om what unfolded. a gunman opened fire in an outdoor country music festival and the gunman was high above on the 32nd floor of a hotel overlooking that concert. >> here's the latest what we know. new information a little while

ago as savannah said, more than 50 kill and 400 others being treated at area hospitals. >> the gunman is 64-year-old stephen paddock. he was dead when officers entered his room on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay hotel. he was from a nearby town, mesquite, nevada. investigators are there searching his home. >> president trump tweeted his warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims of the families. we will bring his remarks to you live. we will start team coverage and steve, good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, matt and savannah. 22,000 people in the crowd fired upon by one man in one room, seemingly with one mission, to kill as many as possible. many had to make a split second decision to hit the deck or run

out of there as fast as possible. we spoke to victims on their way out of the scene just moments after the shooting. this morning as daybreaks in las vegas, the search for answers after a gunman opened fire in a popular outdoor country music festival. it happened just moments after country superstar jays an aldean took the stage at the harvest music festival. gunfire from an automatic weapon erupting into a crowd of thousands of fans. [ fun shots.

to spray the crowd -- confusion quickly turned to panic. concert goers were diving for cover and some laying on top of each other for safety. the bullets raining down for more than an hour by some accounts. >> first we heard firecrackers and thought it was someone playing a joke at a concert and probably just a few minutes later we heard several, several, several times and people screaming, run, run! we had to crawl out and literally ran. ran for our lives. >> law enforcement said the alleged gunman is 64 yield or stephen paddock. police, s.w.a.t. teams tracked him to the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay hotel and officers used explosives to break into his room. >> we have sight on the suspect's door. i need everybody to get back and if we get any response from this

guy to see if he is here or moved on. >> from the 32nd floor, everyone in the hall need to move back. all units move back. >> breech, breech, breech. >> they found more than 10 weapons in the room, confirming he shot and killed himself. they do not have a motive for the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history. >> we have to establish what his motivation is first. there is motivating factors associated with terrorism other than a distraught person intending to cause mass casualty. it will be a matter of process. >> as the sunrises here in las vegas, an eerie sight made more apparent as the strip continues to be shut down as police investigate the deadliest mass shooting in american history. >> in las vegas for us. thank you very much. >> we turn to pete williams who has been working his sources all morning long. what's the latest you are

hearing? >> they are just beginning the search at stephen paddock's home in mesquite, nevada. he lived in a retirement community called the sun city retirement community. you are looking at a picture of police blocking the entrance to that road. you can see the tactical van that will be used for the evidence response teams to gather evidence when they get in. they want to make sure there are no explosives and he has not booby trapped the residence. this is built around a golf course and something of a resort in itself. family members had no idea why their brother diagnosis this. one of the brothers said the family is in complete shock and as though an asteroid fell on the family. he was living with a woman they identified earlier as a person of interest.

her name is mar lou danley and that he was not in the u.s. when the shooting happened and don't believe she was involved. they very much want to talk to her to see what she can tell them about the state of mind of stephen paddock. he checked into the hotel on thursday from which the shooting was committed. by the time he began to do the shooting he acquired a huge arsenal of weapons, more than 10 rifles and enormous amount of ammunition and several dozen magazines or ammunition clips that could be attached to the rifles. he was clearly ready for some mass shooting. they don't know if he intended to target this concert or it became a target of opportunity or what. that is still to be determined. there was no answer to that question in the hotel room when they burst in, blowing the door

off and finding he shot himself. no answer in any of the two cars registered to him. they are hoping that as the hours go by and they search his house and look back through his electronic communications and people he was in touch with, they can get an idea of what may have motivated him and at the same time they will look at when he bought the weapons and began to develop this arsenal. what did he have in mind? they insist they have no answer to the question. the local police say that too. there is no obvious connection to terrorism at this point. they don't know what the motive was. as for the weapons, several of them were of the fairly common variety for these high powered rifles. .223 caliber and one was a .308 caliber which is a larger weapon and has more of a devastating effect.

this is the photograph that is circulating now of stephen paddock. we don't know when this was taken or where, but this was the first photograph and verified the man who carried out this atrocity. >> stephen paddock and i believe we have a shot of the window of the mandalay bay hotel. >> you can see in the center of the screen. that window shot out. the window does not open. the hotel does not have windows that open so he used whether it was the weapon he was firing to shatter that window and stood in that opening. we are not sure how long this whole thing lasted. you can hear the gunshots and we all know he either reloaded one weapon or used multiple weapons to fire down on the crowd. this is what's left of the facade of that building where

stephen paddock opened fire. >> when you see the lay out here and you see the larger vantage point, it bears repeating this was quite a distance. here he is behind the stage from this point of view. and shooting down. you have an incredibly powerful rifle and ammunition to be able to make contact and inflict this kind of damage. >> you keep talking about .308, that's a sniper rifle made for precision targeting. >> we are talking about bullets? >> the rounds. the .223 where he was spraying across the crowd indiscriminately. they are made specifically to cause maximum damage and catastrophic harm. they are made to kill. >> unfortunately you segue perfectly to the next subject. a lot of the people who were hit

by the bullets were rushed to universal medical center where miguel is this morning. what can you tell us? >> reporter: good morning. 104 of the most critically wounded were brought here where doctors were swarmed in as the patients began to slowly arrive. at least 12 are in critical condition and four have died. we know operations at this hour are also under way with those with great wounds. family members and friends began arriving and the last probably got here about two hours or so ago. some patients will need multiple surgeries and most are suffering from severe gunshot wounds and others were injured in the stampede to get to safety. hospital officials say the death toll at this hospital stands at toll and the overall stands at 50. both could rise because the injuries are so severe. matt, back to you. >> thank you very much.

>> we earlier spoke with the representative from the level one trauma center that said surgeries were going on so fast, they left the surgery doors open and people came in one after another. >> she also told us something interesting. recently a trauma physician from orlando that had been part of the response to the pulse nightclub shooting just over a year ago had come to their hospital and talked about what happened in the aftermath of that event in a way of saying by the way, here is what we learned and here's how you should prepare. that happened within a month ago. >> it's far too soon. this took place in one of the largest country music festivals. jake owen was on before jason al dean. >> thankfully we are doing already. unfortunately there is a lot that are not.

it has been a pretty crazy evening here in las vegas. we are all trying to process. >> jake, so you had performed earlier and were not on the stage when this happened. where were you? >> i was on the stage. i just walked up on the stage with a couple of friends of mine including one other artist. we were standing 50 feet away from jason on stage. all of a sudden you heard what sounded -- it was like is that gunfire? it got faster and faster almost like it sounded like it was an automatic rifle. you could hear it off the rafters of the stage and people were fleeing and everyone on stage started running everywhere possible. it was pretty chaotic for sure. >> where were you able to go to seek cover?

>> unfortunately i ran on the opposite direction from where my usual shelter would be which is my bus on the opposite side of the stage. i just ran like everyone else. they come to the show and everyone is asking if there is blood on people and you can see a couple of folks in the streets that looked like they had been shot. you feel like you have seen before and not in real life. >> when something like this happens, time is really hard to even get a grasp on it. we are interested in it because it sounds like other witnesses we talked to went on for sometime. if you had to guess how long from when you first heard the sounds to when the shooting finally stopped.

how long do you think it took place for? >> without even overexaggerating, i would say it had to be close to 10 minutes. it went on for a good four or five minutes before i got back to a bus that was safe in the parking lot. i got to a bus and when i got on a bus, we were hiding in the bus because you could hear gunfire outside. it wasn't something that was quick. it was chaos for seven to ten minutes. >> were you able to get in touch with all of your friends and fellow performers or is there difficult because so many people scattered in different directions? >> there was after a while. i just recently -- my crew manager and manager got to where i am now. we were all separated. a friend of mine stayed with her family for their 50th birthday.

they come to these concerts because it's a freedom thing for the men and women who died for us. we live this life of not being scared which is great, but this is reality these days. this stuff is really happening. we were all scared and i do think it's important to say too, las vegas police department and responders, you can tell they did everything they could to get out here as quickly as possible and take care of these people. they definitely need a shout out as well. >> i heard somebody talk about the staff of the concert venue and the people who were working who normally would help guide you into a concert and that person said they reacted with great calm and they really seemed to try to do everything they could to help people get out of the area. we thank them as well. we are happy you are okay and again, we thank you for joining

us on the phone this morning. that was jake owen later. people have been contacting us and say in some of the shots it appears two windows are blown out. we are talking to our souers. a curtain is coming out of one on the left. it might just be a reflection. anyway, we are working on trying to find out more about that. it's two windows apparently. >> it looks like two, but we don't know the circumstances if that happened when the police came in. we don't know. we will check into it and people have been watching and have very careful eyes and noticed that and we did too. >> the president is going to speak in a little while. we will bring his comments to you live and have the latest on the investigation. first on a monday morning a look at these messages.

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>> shooting through the window down below, 50 plus people dead. many more injured undergoing surgery even as we speak. >> that's a shot where the shooter took his position and appear to be two shot out windows and looking into that. one of the witnesses who were there, mike kronk is on the phone with us and as i understand it, your friend was one who was shot. how is he doing and how are you doing? >> as far as i know, he's in surgery right now. the prognosis is good. i'm in contact with his daughter. as soon as i find out he is out, i will head over and see him.

i'm sure they are quite busy there. he was right next to me and we heard the gunshots go off. i think everybody thought they were fireworks at first. my buddy said hey, i got. i knew it was coming from the one hotel there. i actually saw the distance from the shots were up in a hotel. that's why we were yelling at everybody to get down. >> i understand in addition your buddy who got shot i believe three times, you were in close proximity to someone who was shot and unfortunately passed away? >> a group of four people in the back of a pickup truck to get him to the hospital and finally we were heading back to where we start and there was an ambulance

and we stopped and made a transfer, but somebody's son passed away there in my arms on the curbside. it was quite a night. >> what must have been going through your mind. tell me about when you were running out. was it very difficult to find a way out and we had a lot of witnesses tell us they were pinned in. of course this was a concert and there were walls up. those moments must have been chaos. >> it was very chaotic, but my buddy was shot and there was no way i'm going to leave him after the kind of volleys of shots stopped, most people jumped over and i'm sure it was utter chaos. people were stepping on each other and two other people with

me that i don't know who they are. i was staying with my buddy. i thought we were safe and most people were gone and we were in a safe area. we made a decision to get them out towards the back where supposedly there was help out there. >> he was shot three times and did he remain conscious. >> we kept him conscious. keep your finger in there and shirts to keep it compressed. his finger never left the bullet hole in his chest. >> where was he shot? >> in the upper chest area. that shot the one where the

finger is on the right side. >> where were you guys standing when the shooting started? >> facing the stage we were on the right side. parallel in front of the stage. we were right up close. >> you encountered the other person. i don't know if i quite understood. you were in an ambulance or waiting for the ambulance and held on to him? >> it's kind of crazy. there was no ambulance. it was not a secured zone. there was a private pickup truck and we loaded four wounded people in the back of the truck and rode with them to get to the hospital. as we went down -- i don't know what street we were on. it was blocked off because of the active shooter and we had to turn around and as we were

turning around, we ran into an ambulance and i screamed and stopped them. we were on the curbside there doing this interview with matt earlier. that's where we did the transfer of our wounded into the ambulance. as we were transferring the one young man, he passed away. >> how did you keep your composure as you were loading those people you described into that pickup truck and the bullets were still flying? >> we were trying to -- the bullets were stopped by them. we did wait and there might have been shots going off. it was all a blur right now. it's pretty surreal. once we got him back, there were a number of shots by then.

they had done their jobs. i was concerned about that. he wouldn't have left me. >> our hearts go out to you and give our best to your friend and hope he is out of surgery soon and on his way to recovery. you were quite brave and heroic yourself. >> thanks for taking the time to do what you did, mike. >> thank you. there were many, many, many more people more heroic than i was. it was amazing to see all the civilians and police officers and it was amazing. >> mike, thank you again. we appreciate it. >> you're welcome. >> hallie jackson at the white house where the president is about to speak about this tragedy. what are we expecting to hear from him? >> likely a sober response to the devastation that you guys have been covering all morning in nevada.

this is the most serious and significant event that the president has spoken about when the look at the number of people kill and where it happened here on u.s. soil. this is a moment where the president will step up in the diplomatic room at the podium sometime in the next five minutes if this is running on time and make remarks to the country. we have seen him do this before after the congressional baseball shooting here in washington in which congressman steve scalise who was badly injured as well. this is a different moment for president trump. he has been briefed on this specific event and we know within the last 20 or 25 minutes he has been in his national security briefing as well, likely also talking about what's happening in las vegas. the president tweeted his warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible las vegas shootings. god bless you and followed by

tweets by the first lady and mike pence sending thoughts and prayers to those in las vegas. tom boss ert has been keeping him developed in the vegas shooting and the department of homeland security elaine duke has been involved in the federal response as well even as her agency happens in puerto rico. the president modified his schedule. we expect that in fact we might see the president at a moment like this. we expect that he would push off this regulation meeting he is talking about deregulation that had been the plan as of last night. that changed. the vice president is leading that meeting. we think the president will be meeting with the prime minister of thailand sometime in the next couple of minutes from the diplomatic room at the white house. >> we will bring the remarks to our viewers in a moment.

joe friar is in a hotel room as part of the mandalay bay complex and he like all of the people are on lockdown. they have not been permitted to leave. what can you tell us? >> as far as we know, we are still under lockdown. it has been that way since the shooting started after 10:00 local time. a couple of hours ago, police were going through the floor knocking on doors and checking to make sure everyone was okay. the hotel said police have it under control and still want everyone to stay in their rooms and elevators are shut down. we are in technically the four seasons hotel, but that takes up a few floors on the upper level of the mandalay bay tower. below us is mandalay bay. now that we have seen the window from where we believe the shooter was. we are on the 38th floor and the shooter was on the 32nd floor. about 60 feet directly below us is where this shooter opened

fire on the crowd. we will give you a perspective. we are dealing with the sun and the reflection off the window, but looking through the window down here is the concert venue where this route 91 harvest festival took place. that's where jason aldean was performing and that whole area filled the block of about 22,000 people. concert goers were there to see the headliner. before the shooting began, you can see it was packed in there and people were shoulder to shoulder. you might see some things in the distance in the grassy areas. those are lawn chairs and blankets left behind as people try to run away from the scene. it was six floors below where we are. about 60 feet below. this was the vantage point that the shooter had when he opened fire a little bit after 10:00 last night in this area that was packed.

this window where we are does not open to the public. the window had to be shot or burst through to open fire. we know six floors below us that police are searching the hotel room and found more than 10 rifles so far and are trying to collect as much evidence as they can. this is the las vegas strip. the only activity on this street right now is police cars, fire trucks, the occasional ambulance going through. it is shut down to the public and could be for sometime as police and the fbi and whoever else try to process this massive scene here. savannah and matt? >> thank you so much. 10:31 on the east coast and 7:31 on the west coast. we are awaiting remarks from president trump on this terrible mass shooting that occurred. it happened at 10:00 local time last night. we learned in the hours subsequent that more than 50 people were killed. this is a live shot we showed

you of the diplomatic reception room in the white house. >> we had a question of whether it's one or two windows shot out. pete williams has more on that. a warning that i might interrupt you if the president shows up. >> you can see one window and around the bend in the hotel a second one that was blown out. the question is why. what we are told in the initial assessment is he had a couple of rooms. i'm not sure whether it's a suite that had more than one room or he got connecting rooms, but the point is that they say he had access to more than one room and they believe he was firing out of both rooms. why? they don't know that of course. the supposition is that after shooting out of wornof one, per thought the authorities might return fire and he decided to fire out of a second one.

the belief is and i think perhaps subsequent checking of the smoke detectors and other cameras will give a better answer. they believe he was firing out of both windows you see blown out, one and then the other and possibly running back and forth. he certainly had enough firepower to station them at both windows. but again, no answer here on why. isis claimed responsibility saying that the suspect whom they don't name in the claim, stephen paddock converted to islam, but i have to emphasize that is strictly an isis claim. nobody they talked to, no u.s. law enforcement have information to indicate that is true. his family said he was familiar with las vegas and liked to gamble.

we have been told by law enforcement that he was spending a fair amount of money gambling. that may explain why he had connecting rooms or a large room. as you know, it's sort of a standa arard procedure that if are known to have spent a lot of moan in the hotel, they call them high rollers, they'll upgrade you to a better room in hopes you will stay and spend a lot of money in their casinos. no idea what the motive is, but it appears he was firing out of both of the windows according to the assessment. >> thank you for that information. same warning to you. if the president shows up, i will cut you off. he is shooting out of his window at the concert area, that's a long way away. that shows the power of this weapon. what it can do. >> those military weapons can travel 1,000 yards. the rounds. you think about the vantage point the shooter had in an open area.

you have people penned in because you have barriers that are preventing people from getting into the concert and potentially preventing people from getting out. >> you are shooting at a space as opposed to an individual. >> it's indiscriminate. not shooting at anyone individually. it's full automatic. pop, pop, pop, pop. one after another. likely hundreds of rounds shot over this course. >> somebody talked about the sound of the bullets getting very, very close and going away. you can almost imagine he spraying it back and forth. >> trying to cause as much mass carnage as possible. that was accomplished. >> we have no idea what motivated the gunman, but for isis to say he was a soldier of the islamic state, you take it with a grain. >> i don't know if that's true or an officially monitored channel or someone claiming to

be isis or not, but when we see these things, i always defer or revert that this is terrorism and we move back from there. it's unclear here. we don't have enough information. there is a lot of investigation to do. looking at who this guy was and who was he communicating with. who did they find with the search warrants that indicate the motivation. >> we will find out where he was able to get that kind of weapon. you are not supposed to be able to get the military weapon. this will change our lives once again. you won't be able to go into a las vegas hotel without going through something. we are becoming more and more security safe as we have more and more of these episodes. it's a terrible commentary on where we are and the absence of a civil discussion about how we arrive at it.

everyone goes to the far corners defending the right to own guns and people want to eliminate all guns. we have to find a way to talk about this in a reasonable fashion and hope the president begins that discussion in a way to move forward together. this is something that ought not to divide us, but unite us. >> that's a good point. you have been in the chair over the course of many years and many national tragedies like the one we are watching play out right now and have seen presidents try to put things into perspective and to be the healer in chief and talk about the substance of the attack. how can he thread that needle? >> we will see. his instinct is to push back and fight and stir things up. that's not a political commentary, but an objective analysis of how he conducted himself as president. he is always dukes up. all of his tweets have been in

that fashion as well. the most recent one in which he said using a phrase that i found stunning, take those sobs off the field and fire them, talking about nfl players. some of the biggest sports heroes who decided to take a knee, rightly or wrongly. instead of saying this is a discussion we ought to have and i don't agree, but at the same time we have to decide what's in the best interest of all of us. i invite them to join us in that debate and i would like to be a part of it as well. that tone that we will probably need. we look back at president reagan and the challenger explosion how he healed the country the president of the united states becomes a father of the country and has that role and it's the most important office and a symbol of how we get together as a country and move forward to a higher plain and not constantly

down in the gutter with these fights that go on across the political spectrum. people go way too far as well. the time is over for that. >> we await the president's remarks and he is expected to address the nation at any moment from the white house. there is a need in this country to hear healing words because we suffered a great tragedy. this is a shocking one as well. 50 people killed watching a concert in las vegas and a shooter from the 32nd floor of the hotel trying to inflict as much damage as possible. >> we are waking up this morning and when we first came on the air, the death toll was two. then it grew to 20. now it stands at 50 with many other lives in the balance based on the surgeries they are facing and the recoveries they are facing. this has grown throughout the scope of the last six or seven hours to just something

unimaginable and even as we say that, we feel like we probably said that far too many times in the past. >> we are of course so curious and needing to know what possibly could have motivated this shooter. reporters who have been in touch with his family members talk about their shock. them saying they are just at a loss. they are not sure. one said it was like an asteroid hit them. that's how shocking it was as a revelation that this person is the one that police say conducted the most deadly shooting on u.s. soil in history. we will start to see what motivated him. there is always a chance you never find out, but investigators are descending upon this retirement community that he lived in about an hour outside of vegas. he is a man of some means. he owned two aircraft. he had a cache of weapons that are not cheap and was able to check into a hotel. >> it's hard to imagine it could

be worse, but if you stop and listen to what we now know and the fact that he had the 10 weapons in that room, he had an awful lot of ammunition. you look at the quick work that was done by the las vegas police department and sheriffs department and how they got that s.w.a.t. team up to the 32nd floor and calmly as we heard in that audio recording, calmly and efficiently took down this door perhaps anticipating that this gunman took his own life, but had this not ended when it ended, no telling how many more people who were helpless there on the ground at the concert, how many more might have been killed. >> when you think about the officers based on all of these mass casualties you have seen over several years, they are very calm. they move into action and you train the way you train. they are training regularly.

the police department with the sheriffs department and with the f fbi, they are working together in a collaborative way and many case they have the same communications channels and they can coordinate across agencies. it's an unfortunate time and because of the events that you have seen over the past few years, they have been better at responding and being able to identify and mitigate the threat. >> as we mentioned, the president will speak shortly and we are waiting for that as you are. tom costello has extra information for us. tom? >> reporter: it's not context of mass shootings. there was another one yesterday that is not even getting any attention. it was in lawrence, kansas. that particular case we had i believe three people dead and two injured. it depends on whose numbers you use. everyone is accused of having a political agenda or not. by one count, 460 people died so

far this year in mass casualty shootings. what is exactly the case with mr. paddock? we don't know. we underscore the fact that we have no evidence from any official source that he had any connections to islamic terrorism. that said, the media arm of isis claimed responsibility claiming that this man converted recently. nobody in any official capacity in the united states government has any evidence to substandpoisubstantiate that. there are so many theories on the internet and the vast majority are not plausible. that is the very definition of fake news these days. what we try to do is determine what are the confirmable facts and go along as we can with that. there is no shortage of theories right now on the web. >> what we do know is stephen

paddock checked into this hotel on september 28th, last thursday. he was there for four or four and a half days. this concert, country music concert was three days long. this was the final day of that event. this was the headliner of that event. jason aldean taking to the stage for the largest crowd of the weekend. 22,000 people to hear the culmination of the event. for the days preceding that concert, mr. paddock sat in that room or moved around las vegas taking it all in and was planning this for certainly enraged by something. >> the first night of this concert would have been friday night. no matter what his motive was, he was in a position to observe how this setting would have

unfolded. this was the final night of the concert and he was the headlining act. 22,000 people there. out of nowhere, the gunshots that i think every witness we talked to said it sounded like firecrackers. gunshots were the last thing they expected to hear. it unfolded minute after minute after minute. somebody firing an automatic weapon that was able to shoot these bullets and they said it was almost like a game of red light green light. when the gunshots rang out, they stopped and dropped and took cover and they had an opportunity they would get up and run for their lives until police were able to track the killer. >> and trained to go to a gathering and looked for the exits and try to figure out what

we would do in the event of something bad going on. when you look at the venue, 22,000 people walled in with probably not a lot of exits. once that stampede of people starts, you are left with few options. >> from the security perspective, we have always been trained to look at the perimeter. are we checking people coming in using magnetometers and outside the perimeter canine units. we have not thought about across the street. we have similar venues. this is going to change the way law enforcement and the services look at physically protecting these venues. >> we are talking about state

fairs. >> how many parades go down main street usa and crowds gathered on the sidewalk. >> we are in for a tough time and they have to get involved in this debate. >> the president is about to address this moment from the white house from the diplomatic reception room. he is expected to speak in a few moments. we have been told to expect him at any moment and our white house correspondent is there and do you have a sense of what tone he might take? >> we look to past instances where the president addressed the moment after a moment like this although there has not been a moment in his presidency exactly like this. it will likely be somber. i would imagine based on knowing the folks who are working on these remarks, it will try to

unite the country. any president in an instance like this would want to say something unifying. help people get a grasp and understand what happened. you have been seeing the response from the highest levels across washington in the past couple of minutes. paul ryan called this an evil tragedy saying the country stands united in shock in condolences and prayers and the flag flying above the capital has been lowered to half-staff. i believe the one above the white house has been as well, but you will likely see the president brief remarks there are a small group called the pool of 13 to 20 people who watch the president in moments like this. it is not the typical news conference set up that you might see at other times when a foreign leader comes to visit the white house. you can see the podium there and

within successes president trump will come out to speak. >> it bears repeating that the president has another crisis on his hands of hurricane maria and the devastation in puerto rico. that's very much top of mind as well. the news has overtaken that in the sense that we are talking about a mass shooting and cannot be ignored. more than 400 being treated and the images are shocking. it being looks like people going to a concert and then a terrible scene is coming to life and running for their lives. >> reminiscent of the ariana grande concert in manchester, england where people were having a great night and met by gunfire

as they try to get out of that are arena. the acts of compassion and heroism and try to think about what's going on at the trauma center. here's the president. >> thank you. my fellow americans, we are joined together today in sadness, shock, and grief. last night a gunman opened fire in a large crowd at a country music concert in las vegas, nevada. he brutally murdered more than 50 people and wounded hundreds more. it was an act of pure evil. the fbi and the department of homeland security are working

closely with local authorities to assist with the investigation and they will provide updates as to the investigation and how it develops. i want to thank the las vegas metropolitan police department and all of the first responders for their courageous efforts and for helping to save the lives of so many. the speed with which they acted is miraculous and prevented further loss of life. to have found the shooter so quickly after the first shots were fired is something for which we will always be thankful and grateful. it shows what true professionalism is all about. hundreds of our fellow citizens are now mourning the sudden loss of a loved one.

a parent, a child, a brother or sister. we cannot fathom their pain and cannot imagine their loss. to the families of the victims, we are praying for you and we are here for you. and we ask god to help see you through this very dark period. scripture teaches us the lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. we seek comfort in those words, but we know that god lives in the hearts of those who grieve. to the wounded who are now recovering in hospitals, we are praying for your full and speedy recovery and pledge to you our support from this day forward. in memory of the fallen, i directed that our great flag be flown at half-staff. i will be visiting las vegas on

wednesday to meet with law enforcement, first responders and the families of the victims. in moments of tragedy and horror, america comes together as one. and it always has. we call upon the bonds that unite us, our faith, our family, and our shared values. we call upon the bonds of citizenship, the ties of community and the comfort of our common humanity. our unity cannot be shattered by evil and our bonds cannot be broken by violence and though we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today and always will. forever. in times such as these, i know we are searching for some kind

of meaning in the chaos. some kind of light in the darkness. the answers do not come easy. woe can take solace knowing that even the darkest space can be brightened by a single light and even the most terrible despair can be illuminated boy a single ray of hope. melania and i are praying for every american who was hurt, wounded or lost, the ones they love so dearly in this terrible, terrible attack. we pray for the entire nation to find unity and peace and we pray for the day when evil is banished and the innocent are safe from hatred and from fear. may god bless the souls of the lives that are lost.

may god give us the grace of healing and may god provide the grieving families with strength to carry on. thank you. god bless america. thank you. >> president trump speaking live at the white house on this tragedy that has transpired overnight in las vegas, nevada. he said the country is joined in sadness, shock, and grief. we are searching for meaning chaos, but the answers do not come easily and said the flags will be flown at half-staff and said he will be going to las vegas wednesday. >> striking that tone of unity that people would hope to hear in a moment like this. tom. >> he was also more spiritual saying repeatedly that these are the bonds that unite us and we can't allow them to be broken and we are praying, melania and i for the victims. not only those who died, but

those who are trying to recover as well. it is as somber as we have seen him as president of the united states. in fact he had no other choice. this is the kind of event that unites the country. >> stay with us. we have other guests coming up after your local news. on this m in a moment - we will return to national cove good morning to you, i'm laura garcia-cannon. in a moment, we will return to national coverage of the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history. it happened at a country music festival on the las vegas strip. it is connected to the rampage in las vegas. the deadliest shooting rampage in u.s. history. the san jose hockey team played

a preseason game in vegas last night. they tweeted they arrived back in the bay area about the time of the shooting. the first airline departures left las vegas. we have crews at the airports where the flights are arriving and hope to talk to passengers. >> nancy pelosi issued a statement. america will never waiver in love and support for people of las vegas and families of the victims of this attack. may it be a comfort to loved one that is all americans mourn them. a family member of a nbc bay area employee is in las vegas. she was staying on the same floor of the same hotel where the suspect carried out the carnage. rich tells us she heard the rapid gunfire. police went room-to-room, including hers. >> after a while, there was a lot of commotion and a lot of yelling in the hallway. i quickly heard that it was

police and they were saying they were going to force entry and be prepared to show your hands. so, i emerged from the bathroom and i was standing there with my hands up. they quickly told me to drop to the floor, which i did. i looked up and there were about 20 guns pointed at me. i was terrified. i was all by myself in a hotel room, not knowing what was going on. hearing chaos. >> rich is there for a convention. she says other workers used a work group chat to tell others to stay in their room. let's take a moment to tell you about the local weather and traffic. let's check in with kari hall. >> mostly clear skies and some cool temperatures as you get ready to head out the door. 61 degrees in the peninsula as well as the south bay. 61 in san francisco and the east bay. you can see that sunshine now

that will stay with us as we go through the day. the high in san jose of 79 degrees. 77 in oakland and napa, expect a high of 82 degrees. we'll have a high fire danger today, especially for the inland hills. this is where the wind speeds will be the highest and have low humidity. no burning outside and our temperatures over the next several days will be warming up into the mid-70s for san francisco by the end of the week. inland areas, a high of 79. mike? >> we had crashes at the east shore. a motorcycle down over there approaching san pablo causing slowing off the carquinez bridge, provooiding a break. the rest of the bay shows a slower drive-through the south bay. car fire, 101 will cause a distraction for both directions. slow getting over there because the san mateo and dumbarton bridge show 880 clogged in both directions. back to you.

>> thank you very much. we'll have continuing coverage. we'll be back in a half hour for a local news update. hope to see you then. have a good morning.

just over my left shoulder, 22,000 people packed into an area. one shooter up above doing all he can to kill as many people as possible. thousands of fans were enjoying the final night of the route 91 harvest country music festival. country superstar jason aldean was on the stage when suddenly shots started ringing out. within seconds, chaos, terrified people running for their lives. others desperately taking cover as a hail of bullets rained down from above.

>> there's a shooting! >> reporter: cell phone video capturing the horrific sound of gunfire. >> be advised it is automatic fire, fully automatic fire from an elevated position. take cover. >> i remember looking up at the mandalay bay and i saw lights flashing out of a room. >> reporter: police eventually zeroing in on the suspect, firing from inside the tower and hotel. >> we have sight on the suspect's door. i need everybody in the hallway to be aware of it and get back. we need to pop this and see if we get any type of response from this guy, to see if he's in here or moved somewhere else. >> copy that. all units on the 32nd floor, s.w.a.t. is is there. everybody move back. >> we've determined there was a shooter on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay. officers responded to that location and engaged the suspect at that location. he is dead. >> reporter: first responders

found massive casualties at the scene. several off-duty police officers among the victims. the wounded were transported to local hospitals, so many that some emergency rooms were at full capacity. law enforcement officials tell nbc news the alleged gunman is 64-year-old stephen paddock. our investigations team on the ground here working overtime to get as much position as possible, getting in those first images of the alleged shooter, stephen paddock, 64 years old. and more pertinent to the investigation, the first images of that hotel room that police stormed to find a deceased shooter as they went in. that double-sided window, you can't open the windows up there, shot out as he fired on the crowd below. that will be the focus of the investigation moving forward here in las vegas. back to you, matt and savannah. >> steve patterson, thank you. our orlando affiliate just spoke with the gunman's brother. nbc's pete williams has more on

that and what we're learning about this shooter. pete, good morning again. >> reporter: that comes as authorities are now searching the home of stephen paddock and 82 miles away in mesquite, nevada, a retirement community, the sun city retirement community which is a cluster of homes around the golf course. authorities said he's no stranger to las vegas and his family said they had no idea anything like this would happen. here's what his brother eric told our affiliate, wesh, in orlando. >> our condolences to everyone. we just don't understand. like i said, like an asteroid just fell out of the sky. and we have no reason, rhyme, rationa rationale, excuse. there's just nothing. >> when was the last time you had talked to your brother? >> he texted me to make sure my

mom was okay after the hurricane. we didn't have power for five days. i mean, we're -- there's nothing. i mean, the last time she talked to him, no indication of anything. i mean, nothing. he was in vegas and going on a cruise or something, blah, blah, blah, blah. i mean, he sent her a walker because she's having trouble walking. i mean, it's like i said, find out who sold him the machine gun. there's no -- i'm -- i don't know what else to say. i just -- i mean, it's his fault that he did this. but i'd like to know where he found the machine gun because that's not something that's that easy to come by, i assume. and he's not -- i mean, he has no criminal record, nothing, nothing, no affiliations with anything.

there's nothing. so -- >> can you describe sort of what went through your head when you found out that it was your brother's name that came out. >> i thought it was somebody joking. if all my cell phones and house phones didn't light up at the same time with las vegas pd on them, i would have thought it was some dopey friend of mine making a joke. there's no -- there's just -- i mean, we're working with the cops since the first thing trying to, you know, try to understand or, you know, trying to make it -- do what we could. there's just nothing -- we got nothing to give you. there's nothing. he was just a guy. >> how is your mom coping? >> she's okay. she's 90 years old and she's -- her son just killed a bunch of people and got shot dead. so she's a little rattled,

strangely enough. but she's okay. i mean -- >> did you know the woman that he was -- >> yeah. that's his girlfriend. i mean, that's why we were on the phone with the cops the first thing is to find out what happened to her. there's no -- i mean, she's just a nice lady who was his girlfriend, and we're worried that she was going to get shot up or something because they thought something weird because he's -- i mean, he's definitely only himself. there's no -- there's no affiliations. i mean, once again, that i know of at all. i mean, there's no affiliations. there's no church, there's no religion, there's no politics, there's no anything. >> have you had a >> had he had any issues with mental illness in the past? >> not that i know of. but there's no -- nothing -- >> nothing that would have

indicated to you -- >> he had some allergies. i mean -- i mean, he was just a guy. i mean, i want to know -- i mean, we want to know what in the world this -- we need to know. i'd like to know how in the world or what -- what happened. like i said, it's just like an asteroid fell out of the sky. there's no -- there was nothing that would say he would do this kind of thing. >> eric, is there anything else that you would like to say? >> once again, our condolences. i mean, you know, it could have been my kids at that show, et cetera, et cetera. i don't know what else to say. >> have you seen any of the videos? have you -- >> we've been watching this stuff all morning. i mean -- >> how does that affect you?

>> my brother just killed 50-plus people. how does that affect me? i'm a little -- yeah, i got this headache right now strangely enough. i mean, we're -- our family is huddling together and trying to hope -- you know, we're trying to make sense of this. i mean, the first thing i did was get ahold of everybody and find out if anybody had been in contact with him or anything. but nothing. i mean, my son had texted him a couple weeks ago to tell him about he's getting married. if he wanted to drop by for the wedding kind of thing. >> when was the last time he lived in florida? was it recent? >> it's been a year or two ago. he lived in melbourne. he had a house there for a little while, decided he didn't like the -- too much -- too much dust from the farms.

i moved him back to vegas to mesquite. i mean, he ate burritos at the del taco. he drove down to vegas and played video poker. >> from what you know, he was just living a normal life? >> exactly. nothing. exactly nothing. >> what did he do for a living? >> he was retired. >> what had he done before? >> it's all on the public record. he did stuff. he went to college. he had a job. we owned some apartments. we sold some apartments. i mean, there's nothing. there was no -- >> no indication at all? >> nothing. that's what's so -- i mean, i can't even make something up. there's just nothing.

i'm -- >> loss for words. >> it's just -- there's just nothing. >> that's eric paddock outside his home in orlando talking to our affiliate, wesh, about why he thinks his brother might have done this. he said it's a complete mystery to the family. he did confirm some details about the suspect, stephen paddock, that he had lived for a time in florida, that they owned some apartments together and that he decided to move back to nevada, to las vegas, where he was living in a retirement community. we believe that he had some -- spent some time as an accountant. he worked for a while for the predecessor company of defense contractor lockheed martin from 1985 to '88, but we're still not sure what he was doing in the years since then, and authorities say they are completely at a loss here about

why this happened. they hoped that a search of his home will turn up some answers to that question. isis has claimed that he recently converted to islam, but several u.s. officials have said they found absolutely nothing to confirm that. >> well, that was a fascinating interview because there you have a brother who seems completely just absolutely dumbfounded by what's taken place and doesn't seem to have any idea how his brother could be involved. it's not like they lost touch. it sounded like they were in reasonable touch with each other. >> just texted his mom to make sure she was okay after the hurricane. let me go to our two law enforcement guys. have you ever heard anything like that where you ask questions about what might have been behind this and you come up with nothing? >> this is very unusual that they will be looking at if this was an individual on social media. the home certainly is a hope for a break, the idea of finding something there. having no sense of what the motive was is very unusual. >> there's something very

interesting about this whole isis connection and it's certainly, from what we have seen and heard thus far, doesn't appear to be related to that. but in the past when we've seen attacks that ultimately were traced back to isis, it took a couple of days for isis to officially come out and say that it was isis inspired or isis directed. if this is an official isis channel and they're making declare tif statements so early on, that's very unusual to me because i haven't seen that before. >> unusual leading you to what conclusion? >> i'm not really sure. i think that where in the past they've held off, where somebody was inspired by isis and came forward it wasn't until after there was information that came to the public that said, yes, in fact, they were communicating with somebody or they were on some of these isis channels listening and watching so they were inspired and law enforcement came out officially and isis said, yes, this person was connected to isis. it took a few days because i think they want to maintain their credibility. they don't want to make a statement and it turns out not to be accurate.

in this case it's very unusual. if in fact, this is an isis channel authorized or attributed versus just something that we're picking up randomly on social media. >> one of the things we need to talk to the woman who he was associated with, who turns out was out of the country at the time, because if he got somehow persuaded by isis, the abhorrent behavior would be to completely keep it quiet, if he was so driven over the edge that he was going to do what he ended up doing. but i mean, all the sympathy goes out to that brother saying no religion, no politics, nothing, we don't know what was going on. >> no mental illness. he's sitting there trying to rack his brain what could it possibly be. >> my son invited him to a wedding recently. generally in those cases -- you guys know more about this in terms of profile than i do -- there's a little tiny insight at some point into some kind of behavior that they want to share if they've been somehow

compromised by an outside force, they can't wait to tell somebody about it or they're suspicious of what's going on in this country. nothing to indicate that thus far. >> something clearly is going on. we just haven't found it yet. it's still so early here and there's a lot of people to be spoken to. >> here's a picture from, we understand, a number of years ago where eric paddock and his brother stephen are together. stephen is the one standing on the right of that picture. eric is sitting down on the left. you know, i agree with tom. heart goes out to this guy who all of a sudden has a last name that is associated with the worst mass shooting in this country's history, and he's at a loss for any answers. >> there's no answer at this time. maybe there was something left behind in the room. he was in that room for four days. maybe something left behind at the residence at the development that he was living in. >> and shawn is correct, we haven't heard from all the

people who bumped up against him recently. >> he's living in nevada. they're living in into are flflt strikes you when something like this happens and people say, well, he had this or that problem or it's not all that shocking. here's a guy who said it's like an asteroid fell out of the sky that it's his brother. >> i can't wait to hear from the companion, the woman who was out of the country at the moment. they were fairly close and i think that's going to be key. >> they're going to go over his cell phone and find out who he was in contact with recently. >> they'll be able to assist locals. locals clearly have the lead but the fbi has a lot strategically placed around the world and i wouldn't be surprised if they've already made contact with her. >> our correspondent is in mesquite, nevada.

investigators have spent a lot of the morning searching his home and they're being very delicate about it of course. katie, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, savannah. we just heard from an officer who told us they have been here throughout the night at the home of stephen paddock that they say he shared with his girlfriend. they say they've been securing this property, making sure there were no explosives inside, evacuating neighbors to make sure everyone was safe and is that they have made entry into that home. he wouldn't share a lot of details about what they're finding other than to say this looks like any other typical home in a retirement community, well kept, lived in, nothing unusual or suspicious. he did say they found firearms inside the home and some ammunition but would not elaborate on the amount or that it was in any way suspicious. at this point they are still searching through that home, still executing a search warrant to try and garner any information to try and find out what the motivation could have been for this massacre. at this point they have very

little detail to lean to what the motivation might be. they're hoping that somewhere inside that home there are some answers. whether that lies on a computer, a text message, anything that they could give. i asked the officer, were there numbers in the driveway and coffee cups in the sink. they said absolutely, this house was lived in. this is a quiet community. in fact, our officers had never responded to this residence. we've never had contact with this couple before, and he admitted that given the scope of this crime, the magnitude of this crime, that is very unusual, the fact that this couple is not even on their radar. they've never been here before. neighbors have been sort of out and about wondering what to think at this point, wondering who this man was, how he was in their midst, and no one knew it. >> it's getting to be more and more mysterious. katie, thank you. we know that 50 lives were lost in this tragedy. other lives hang in the balance based on the severity of the wounds they received at the hands of this shooter.

da neat ta cohn is with the university medical center in las vegas where some of those wounded, many of them are being treated. good morning again. can you give us some updates in terms of the conditions of patients, numbers of patients being treated. >> good morning again, matt and savannah. as you were saying earlier, yes, we did receive 104 patients here at umc overnight. those patients were both treated in our emergency department as well as our trauma center. our trauma 3center is a stand-alone trauma center so we have everything that's necessary to take care of any life threatening injury imaginable, from our cat scan and blood bank as well as an ability to call in any type of specialist. our trauma certasurgeons are he house but if we need any specialist, they're minutes away. we have 12 patients who are critical.

they're receiving one-on-one nursing care in our icu units. we have discharged, released some patients, so that's good news this morning, and still taking care of those at the bedside. >> can you tell me how many people are in surgery at this moment and how many are waited to be operated on? >> we have 8 who originally went into surgery. oftentimes we do surgery to stabilize an injury and once a patient is stable they'll go back into surgery. oftentimes our trauma patients can have multiple surgeries. we just need to wait for them to be well enough to go back into surgery. so they will be returning to surgery later on today. >> obviously you're dealing with gunshot wounds. how severe are we talking? >> we still have those 12 patients critically injured. those are life threatening injuries so they have an entire trauma intensive care unit team around the bedside. when i say that, yoi don't just mean there's a nurse watching one monitor as we might see on tv but a full team of trauma

surgeons and residents and fellows because we're also a teaching facility here and our full team with critical care nurses there at the bedside with the patient. >> just to be certain here, we spoke earlier, but i was listening to sheriff lombardo speak not long ago and he did talk about this idea that people could donate blood. is there a critical shortage of blood now or do you have what you need and is that more preventative? >> there is not a critical shortage. we are very well stocked with our blood supply. however, we understand that people want to do anything to help and if that help comes in the form of blood donations, we are willing to take them and so we are holding a hospital blood drive starting at 9:00 pacific time here so in just about 40 minutes or so just to make sure that we do keep our sheclves fully stocked. traumas will continue today just as any other day here at the trauma center from car crashes

to our typical traumas, people falling off of buildings and falling while hiking and getting into water ski accidents. those will continue and we want to be prepared for them. >> you talk about that hospital blood drive. i would imagine you're going to have an incredible turnout this morning. thanks for the hard work that all you folks do and thanks for the information. >> thank you very much for your support. we appreciate it. obviously this is one of those things, shawn, that people have drilled for, including these trauma centers. in fact, i think they were telling us earlier that they had received training from somebody who had responded to the orlando shooting and fortunately that expertise has been brought to bear. people coming in with these grievous wounds. >> when you talk about a traumatic incident like this type of catastrophe, the first responders there on the scene, the police officers and the emts are part of it but you have what she just described and how you coordinate with the hospital, communicate how many victims are coming in, et cetera, so that

you've got this process by which you take people off of this field and bring them to a place where they can have life-sustaining procedures performed. they've got to train together. it's very choreographed. relationships are built. people talk to each other and get to know each other and it really helps when there's a time of crises for people to have those relationships in advance. >> in a similar subject, as a guy who was a police commissioner not only here in new york but in los angeles, every tragedy is also a learning experience, and so when you look at the circumstances that we've been talking about this morning, what can law enforcement agencies learn about what happened here to try to prevent something like this in the future? >> they'll learn a lot and you're correct. after every one of these events, whether it's the hospitals, police, fire, you try to learn. shortly there will be the international association chiefs of police conference just down the line here in philadelphia.

i can guarantee that joe lombardo will be at those conferences giving speeches about lessons learned. just watching some of the videos here, lessons learned. the idea that they had firefighters, emt with ballistic vests, we have learned that. there will be a phenomenal amount of learning material coming out of this. we have the issue that we spoke about earlier that the emotional aftermath of this, 22,000 people who over the next several days are going to start realizing i'm alive and so many others are not, and so we haven't had anything like that since 9/11 dealing with that many traumatized individuals. >> i think you'll see grief counseling, to the commission commissioner's point. people coming together to try and address that emotional side. you talk about ptsd and people who just suffered through a tragedy.

while they may not have been injured, they watched people die before them and they're going to require the need to sit and speak to counsellors who are trained specifically for these types of events. >> the investigation of course goes on as well. we want to go to halle jackson, our chief white house correspondent who's at the white house. we learned this morning that the president intends to travel to las vegas this week. halle, what else can you tell us? >> reporter: the white house confirmed that president trump has spoken with the governor of nevada, also the mayor of las vegas as well as the sheriff there, so the president inside the west wing here making these phone calls to people on the ground. you mentioned he will visit vegas on wednesday. that is the plan. and he will still travel to puerto rico tomorrow. that had been previously scheduled. this visit to the island to look at the damage from hurricane maria and the ongoing crises that is happening in the u.s. territory. the president will take that

trip still i am told by a white house official. he'll presumably return back to washington before heading out west on wednesday to meet likely with first responders and others who were involved in the response and perhaps some of the victims of the vegas shooting. you heard the president speak from the diplomatic room in what was a very somber speech to try to unite the country, combi. he made references to scripture. he talked about unity, about trying to find those moments of hope and selflessness in what appears to so many to be this senseless tragedy, but he did not mention, for example, terror or terrorism. he did not mention guns or gun control. i will tell you from my vantage point inside the beltway, that's where the conversation is headed over on capitol hill among lawmakers who are coming out. as we've seen incidents similar to this one, of course there hasn't been one like this in the trump administration to this

point, that is where the conversation here in washington appears to be headed and as tom brokaw 25utalked about earlier, you're seeing the people on the sides of this topic retreating to their corners. the president is still set to meet with the prime minister of thaila thailand. they'll be able to bring cameras and video cameras in to see that meeting. it looks as though these remarks will stand alone from president trump today here at the white house. >> halle, there's nothing political about a morning like this in that i believe we also said that the morning after the n newtown school shooting and it didn't take long for the subject to turn to politics. >> >> reporter: both senators from connecticut bringing up gun control and talking about what congress might be able to do. >> halle jackson at the white house this morning where the president spoke a little bit earlier on talking about the

fact that we're joined in sadness, shock and grief, and talking about his upcoming trip to nevada this coming wednesday rampage continues. we will return to nbc )s nationl coverage in a moment. th breaking news coverage of the las vegas shooting ram page continues. we'll go back to national coverage in just a minute. this hack deemed the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history. it happened last night at a country musicfest value on the las vegas strip. the first scheduled flights of the morning have arrived from las vegas to the bay area airports. at san francisco international, we have one las vegas man here on business from las vegas arriving this morning. he says he and his girlfriend went to the first day of the country music festival on friday and were supposed to attend all three days including last night's show. he even showed us wristbands he and his girlfriend wore to the festival. andre walters says the only reason he ended up not going

last night was because his girlfriend was not feeling well. >> i kept on forcing her, come on, let's go. she said no, and i said, you know what, and then i decided to back out, then i tried to give my son the tickets, cut the band off, you can take this with you and go. he said no. i tried to get my son-in-law to go and he didn't want to go. we backed out. then i got phone calls everybody wandering because on facebook we kept posting pictures all weekend for the concert. but thank god we didn't go. >> walters also says that he's since learned that the son of one of his friends has been killed in a rampage, but he also says that vegas is strong and will bounce back from this tragedy. we also know that the san jose sharks hockey team played a preseason game in las vegas last night. earlier the sharks tweeted that players and staff arooifd back in bay area about the time that shooting started. we will continue to make calls covering the local perspective

of this deadly shooting. go to our website, nbcbayarea.com, and continuing local coverage. we'll have the latest on our midday newscast at 11:00 a.m. back live the "today" show. he brutally murdered more than 50 people and wounded hundreds more. it was an act of pure evil. >> president trump speaking from the white house just a moment ago on this breaking news. the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history, more than 50 people lost their lives last night on the las vegas strip. 400 more sent to the hospital with their wounds. >> the president also announcing he's ordering flags at half staff and he'll head to las vegas on wednesday. >> we think that officials in las vegas are about to hold a news conference and we will bring it to you live, give us an update on this investigation. first let's go to nbc's joe fryer. he's with us on the phone.

he's actually in that hotel complex. joe, as i understand it, you just happened to be there covering a different story when all of this unfolded last night. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, savannah. we came obviously to las vegas because o.j. simpson was released over the weekend, so we were actually staying in the four seasons hotel which is really part of the mandalay bay tower. it basically takes up a few floors on the upper level. so what you're looking at right now is the viewpoint from our room. we're on the 38th floor of the mandalay bay tower. it was 6 floors below where we are where the gunman opened fire. you're looking at where this country music festival was taking place last night around 10:00. that area was filled with 22,000 people. so it was jam-packed as jason aldean took the stage. that's when the man opened fire. so i was actually in a different room across the hallway and was sleeping and i have to admit i didn't hear anything until my producer called me.

but this room we're in right now, my producer sosie was in here. she was sleeping, but she woke up when she heard the gunfire. at first thought it sounded like gunfire but figured it must have been fireworks or something to do with the concert because it was so loud at the concert down below. a number of people who were at the concert thought it was fireworks, but then eventually everyone started to realize that it was gunfire and that it was actually coming from here, mandalay bay. with the sun rising we get a better look at the view down below. in the grassy area you can see where blankets and lawn chairs and other items were left behind. clearly people had sort of laid out in those areas as they were enjoying the concert. all of those items left behind as people scrambled to freedom. this area is basically blocked off right now. no one's able to get here. even though the lockdown here where we are has been lifted and we're free to come and go from our rooms and the hotel, this strip here, las vegas strip, this area, is not accessible to the public right now. we're only seeing official

vehicles, police vehicles, maybe a few fire trucks and other things in this area and obviously where this shooting scene took place is going to be the subject of a major investigation in the coming hours and days. >> joe quickly, before you go, when this happened and this lockdown went into effect, how were you informed of that? was there some sort of a loud speaker announcement? did police come to the floors? what happened? >> we did not hear any sort of loud speaker announcement at all. one of our producers called down to the front desk to ask about what was going on. we were told the hotel is in a lockdown, stay inside your rooms. quite a few hours passed before finally -- and we would occasionally look outside our window. there were a couple times where we could hear noise outside in the hallway. we would look through the peep hole and see fully armed police officers in tactical gear with guns going through so we knew we had to stay inside at that time and we didn't want to report much about that when it was happening because of the

situation unfolding, but that is something that we saw and then eventually a few hours later police went door to door knocking on the doors to make sure everyone was okay to see if anyone needed help and then the hotel was calling each of the rooms to say we want you to stay away from the windows. police just want to make sure that they've secured the entire area. then it was basically just a tweet from mandalay bay that informed us that the lockdown is through and then we called down to the front desk and had that confirmed. >> a long night for folks there for sure. joe fryer, thank you very much. >> as always, pete williams is working his sources and learning more about the gunman. pete, good morning again. >> reporter: matt, good morning. we're getting a somewhat fuller picture of the gunman but i must say that the pieces that we're getting don't point us toward any kind of answer about why this happened, why did he go to this hotel last thursday which is when the police say he checked in. the police suggested that he did

not check in under his own name, that he use the name or perhaps this woman that he was living with, marilou danley actually booked the room. the police earlier today described her as a person of interest but then said that they were confident that she was out of the country when the shooting happened and that she wasn't involved. she has apparently told the police that she has no idea why this happened, and his brother eric who lives in orlando talked to our affiliate wesh and says he doesn't have any idea either. >> i mean, our condolences to everyone. we just don't understand. it's like i said, an asteroid just fell out of the sky. and we have no reason, rhyme, rationale, excuse. there's just nothing. >> reporter: we believe also that he was an accountant, that

he worked for a while for lockheed corporation before it merge to form lockheed martin. that was 1985 to '88. the brother said they owned some apartment buildings together which we believe were in texas. then he lived for a while in melbourne, florida and then moved to nevada where he lived in a retirement community clustered around a golf course. and authorities and family members have said that he often spent a lot of time in las vegas at casinos and hotels. we've seen -- we've been told rather of financial transactions that say within the past couple of weeks he had spent a fair amount of money at the tables in the tens of thousands of dollars. some transactions as much as $30,000. but we can't tell from those records whether these were winnings or losses. but in any event, he was comfortable spending or wagering large amounts of money. the police say they believe that he fired from two separate windows that he broke out from his room on the 32nd floor of

the mandalay bay hotel. they believed that he fired from the one that you see the curtain blowing from there and then you see the second curtain just coming into the picture now just around the corner and this is a different angle looking head on at the bend in the hotel tower. they say these were connecting rooms or part of a large suite that stephen paddock had and that he fired from one location and then the other, and the police have said that he had at least ten rifles with him and an enormous amount of ammunition. there has been some question about how they finally found this room. there had been some reporting indicating that perhaps they keyed off the smoke detectors in the hotel, but the police have also said that they kind of had to work their way up to the 32nd floor, that they began clearing floors out. i guess we're going to hear more from them here shortly at a news conference in las vegas.

>> sheriff lombardo is about to speak and address reporters and bring everybody up to date. let's listen in. >> are we ready? kevin, can you come up? good morning, everyone. for those of you that don't know, i'm sheriff lombardo from clark county. i don't have very much more to update you with from our previous briefings. one thing in particular that has changed in the negative is our body count -- that's the wrong way to say it. the number of people that have died associated with this event has increased. right now we're using the number of 58. i just was informed that it may be 59 of an individual that may have expired at sunrise hospital. in normal fashion, i do not want to give you bad information, so please do not press me on that number until we get further into

this investigation. the number of injured, we are using the number of 515. as you can tell as the hours go by, that number continues to increase. we have not received any additional intelligence associated with the suspect. we have completed the search warrant in mesquite. i am not aware of any derogatory information that we can utilize in furtherance of this investigation at this point, but we have just recovered items and it will take a little while to evaluate that information. we have learned information of additional property in northern nevada and the fbi has responded to the location and will be serving a search warrant here shortly. we have completed the investigation at the room. we have collected all the items associated with the suspect and we are in the recovery phase of that. the mandalay bay itself has gone

back to service minus the 32nd floor, and they would like everybody advised. the location in question, the concert hall, we will be in a long process of body recovery out there and evidence recovery and evidence documentation. we're going to have to ask the public's patience as we bring the information forward. it's a long, laborious process to identify the victims and reunite them with the family members to advise them of their situation. so, we still have the families responding to the las vegas metropolitan police department headquarters in order to conduct a reunification of their family and friends. eventually in the next few hours -- actually, i don't want

to give you a skewed timeline, but approximately 1:00 p.m. we will request the family members to respond to the convention area, convention center area to utilize a larger space, and we can bring in victim advocates to assist with the family members in the long term. right now it's just a temporary phase associated with the reunification. additionally, we are asking to solely utilize united blood service for blood donation and umc as the only places to donate blood. we had some resource issues associated with their laborer's medical clinic. i applaud their effort to help us in that effort but we have some resource issues associated with that. so better utilize lvmpd.com so you know where those united blood service locations are so

we can get the needed blood for the victims associated with this. at this point, as you can tell, i have several individuals to my rear that would like to make comme comment, reference the isis statement. i want to bring that up now so i can give the opportunity to special agent rouse to respond to that from the fbi and he will explain what we know now in referencing the isis claim and this individual. thank you. good morning. as this event unfolds, we have determined to this point no connection with an international terrorist group. as this investigation continues, we will continue to work with our partners to ensure that this is factually, thoroughly and absolutely investigated to be able to bring comfort and peace back to this community. thank you. good morning. my name is ruben keywin, the congressman for the fourth congressional district here in

nevada. i just want to say thank you to law enforcement and to all the first responders who are now fighting tirelessly to protect and save lives. i had the opportunity to stop by sunrise hospital earlier this morning. i saw first hand a lot of the victims, a lot of the family members, but i also saw a lot of nurses and doctors that were working tirelessly to save lives. today it's a very sad day for nevada. it's a very sad day for las vegas. but if anything good came out of this, i saw humanity. i saw our community come together. i saw strangers helping strangers and saving lives. i do want to say thank you to the sheriff and to metro police, to firefighters, the doctors, the nurses and everybody who is working tirelessly to save lives at this precise moment. i know we're going to get through this and our city will be stronger. thank you so much.

i'm clark county district attorney steve wolfson. on behalf of the clark county d.a.'s office, our thoughts and prayers go out to everybody associated with this event. two of my prosecutors, two of my young female prosecutors were actually at this concert close to the stage. i've spoken to both of them this morning and they're pretty rattled. they're pretty shaken up. this was a horrific event to say the least. this is a classic wmd. this is a weapon and a man of mass destruction. what i'm pleased so much about is how this doesn't involve politics in the sense of republican or democrat. we are here, all of us are nevad nevadasens and we're working together to get through this. i want to thank sheriff lombardo

for your leadership in leading us through this terrible, terrible day. thank you. >> thank you, sheriff. i want to first off begin by thanking the sheriff. i got down here 8 or 9 hours ago. there weren't many of us here 8 or 9 hours ago, just a handful immediately after this incident. i can tell you our first responders, both the men and women of the fire department and metro were on their way in when this all happened. we've got first responders that are literally covered in blood as a result of this. there's a lot of victims that have not been identified as of this point. but they have stepped up. it was a sole shooter. there's no further threat that we're aware of, no immediate threat. i want to assure everyone that's listening that las vegas is safe. the men and women at mandalay bay and mgm have been incredible in terms of communicating and working with the sheriff's office in order to ensure that everybody can be taken care of, get back in the rooms and they understand we are safe and we're doing everything humanly

possible to protect all our tourists and our citizens in clark county. that being said, the sheriff and i have set up a go fund me account that some of you might have seen. we have been inundated with phone calls and e-mails and text messages of people asking what they can do. there's going to be a lot of family members going through an awful lot at this particular time. as the sheriff said we have over 500 in our hospitals being treated and we need to provide them with some sort of support. so we have done that and i just can't say enough about the fine men and women that are our first responders here in clark county and all of the cities and jurisdictions have pulled together. i thank them all for that. we pledge our full resources so assist the sheriff and fbi. we ask for your prayers. god bless you. i want to thank you all. i'm mayor carolyn goodman of this great city. i absolutely mirror what the

commissioner had spoken to about the great response, rapid, thorou thorough, of our first responders and law enforcement. i spent part of last night and was late this morning with you all because i was over at umc in the trauma unit. it's been a very, very difficult time for us. as we look forward to continuing what our great city does, we offer a safe place. this is a crazed lunatic full of hate. we don't know much about his background, but it certainly is not an extension of what we believe in, what everybody who lives here and works here and those who visit here want to see. this is something that was simply outrageous, uncalled for, and so many innocent people, young people, children, parents who have lost loved ones and so many still suffering in the hospitals, gone through major surgery.

we have some that were hit quite lightly with shrapnel as they were near the exits. it's been a hugely traumatic time for all of us, and for our visitors who live country music, many of whom have come from the northern part of our state here and just really came here for a wonderful, safe time, we pride ourselves and our law enforcement. they are so rapid to respond, so thorough in what they do, and our first responders have been simply phenomenal. it is a city and a community that has pulled together. everybody is working so hard to make sure that we are taking care of the needs of the families and those who have lost loved ones. it's just been a very, very traumatic time for everybody. the president gave a beautiful message, and he will be visiting us either some time later today, tomorrow or wednesday.

great concern. and we just know that the entire community -- i have so many mayors that have called, governors who have called me personally to express their support, help, and what we ask for is blood. that's the main thing right now, is that if our people want to do something and they are healthy, then please donate blood. we'll have plenty of banks available. always call a hospital if you're unsure where to go. so thank you very much. madam congresswoman, i'm sorry, i didn't mean to step in front of you. >> it's a pleasure to follow you. thank you very much -- >> listening to a press conference taking place regarding this tragic shooting in las vegas. a couple of pertinent pieces of information that came out. the death toll now stands at 58, possibly higher. it was addressed by the fbi special agent at that press conference that at the moment

they have checked out these claims by the media wing of isis that in some ways stephen paddock was affiliated with them and they had found no credibility to that claim. >> that's right. let's go to pete williams on that point because we've been reporting that there's some affiliate of isis claiming that this was one of its soldiers to use the words that the statement used, and it sounds like so far the fbi is saying there's just nothing to verify that at all. no connection. >> reporter: that's right. we have been told something similar by law enforcement and intelligence officials that they didn't believe that statement, nothing to corroborate it. i think one of the -- several things that were disappointing in this news conference. one is the sheer number of people injured, 515. the mayor said some were just in essence grazed by shrapnel but others were seriously wounded. that's just an astonishing number. the second thing that's disappointing is that the authorities say they've finished their search now of stephen

paddock's home in mesquite, nevada 80 miles away. they were hoping that going through that house might shed some light on this, that they might find some notes, some literature, maps or plans. but he said -- the way he described it is we found nothing derogatory, which is sort of law enforcement talk for nothing that would be connected to this event. however, that's the physical search that's under way. he did say they collected a number of items, and these days people leave behind a lot of footprints and electronic media, cell phones, ipads, laptop computers, desktop computers. all of those will be exploited to see if they can find whether he was in touch with anyone, whether he was writing notes to anybody or to himself. >> pete, stick with us. we'll be back with you in just a couple of minutes. appreciate it. >> the sheriff also said they

learned of another property in northern nevada that they'll check out so we'll keep tabs on that. let's turn to luke combs, one of the big names in country music who was part of this three-day festival. he's with us by phone. luke, as i understand it, you performed in the afternoon but you were near the stage when this happened. what did you see and hear? >> absolutely, savannah. yeah. i actually performed on the other stage at the other end of the fairgrounds at about 7:20. my set was done around 8:30. i came over to the other side of the stage which is where there was kind of a v.i.p. bar area. i went up on the bus with jason like when it happened i was standing with my manager and we heard the first four shots ring out. doing music for a living you deal with pyrotechnics a lot on

stage and so nobody on the stage really even batted on eye at the first four shots because it just seemed like it was part of the show and nobody on stage was concerned. at that point we were standing there and the first burst happened and still at that point i was kind of under the impression that maybe something was going wrong with the pyrotechnics or there was some kind of electrical failure. at that point it just seems to me like they were clearing everyone off the stage because there was some sort of danger to the people directly on the stage. it wasn't for a few minutes after that that pandemonium set in when the bursts kept happening. i know that i've been watching the news pretty much been up all night watching stuff. they said maybe it was four or five clips is what i heard. it had to be upwards of 10 to 12, at least, from what i heard personally.

yeah, it was definitely a scary situation. i'm thankful to be here. my thoughts are out with everybody else, you know. >> luke, when you finally did realize this was gunfire and not a problem with pyrotechnics, how did you get out of that area? where did you go? >> originally everyone was sort of panicking and me and my manager were pretty calm. i've been around firearms many times and it didn't sound like gunfire to me. i was actually in the tent with a fan who had wandered back in the back. we were both talking about how it definitely wasn't gunfire for a second and then we heard the next burst and to me it sounded like maybe he had put a weapon out of the window which completely changed the sound of what i was hearing and at that point we go, okay, this is 100% gunfire. obviously we didn't know it was coming from the hotel so we just

knew that we were at least a decent ways away from it so i actually had to make a bee line back towards the stage to get out. my bus was parked across the street so we ran out, ran across the street and got on the bus. luckily we were able to locate the rest of our band and crew within the next ten minutes or so. >> luke, i can only imagine the scene there, pandemonium, but did you see -- were there people injured that you saw? >> you know, luckily for me, i didn't see anyone injured personally. for me it was kind of you didn't really know what was going on, whether it was an attack that was targeted at the festival or there was some kind of violence going on that just happened to be close to the festival. for me, at the beginning i thought i haven't seen anyone

that's injured. i haven't, you know, felt any bullets hitting around me or anything like that. so i was relatively calm in that situation. it felt like to me it was far away. but unbeknownst to me it was very close. >> you say you've been up all night watching the coverage and we know that this shooter, stephen paddock, was in that hotel since last thursday and had a room where he was looking right down over this venue for the last four days. i know the concert has only been going on for three. what's it do to you emotionally to know that this guy was basically overlooking that entire area and was waiting for what seems to be the culmination of this to carry this out? >> it's obviously disturbing to know that he was up there kind of waiting for his opportunity. but at the same time i don't want to be scared or put any shows of mine on hold or

anything like that because i feel like that's what this person wants to happen. i feel like he wants everybody to be scared and be afraid and i feel like, you know, obviously we need to be strong in times like this and there's a place for us to all be sad and grieve together and help each other out, but at the same time i think we need to be able to move forward and not let something like this affect our daily lives, even though it's ruined a lot of peoples lives. >> luke, i want to say thank you very much for talking to us. happy you're okay. hope to see you in the coming days. >> of course, thank you guys so much. >> thank you. let's go back to that news conference. the sheriff has taken the mic again. we want to hear what he's saying. >> greg castle, he's just very humble. he's obviously the clark county fire chief. he likes to stand in the back, but where we are different in our jurisdiction as through my

travels in comparison to other jurisdictions, we work very well with the fire department.. they did not hesitate to pair up with an officer and enter the fray. i want to thank him for that. thank you, greg. i'm happy to answer some questions. as you know, the investigation is continuing, so please do not get too detailed on your questions because i probably will not be able to answer at this time. >> sheriff lombardo? >> yes, sir. >> is there any computer information or anything that this man might have? and you mentioned a second location in northern nevada. >> the second location is just based off assessor's records of ownership. we discovered that he owned another piece of property in northern nevada. as far as electronic evaluation, we haven't had the opportunity to do that yet. the only thing we are immediately aware in our position is additional firearms and ammunition.

>> people were hit with shrapnel, that's what the mayor said. i want you to follow up on that. also, how did he get these weapons into the hotel room at the mandalay bay? >> like i said, we're doing an investigation. i don't want to give you any inaccurate information, but we do know that he brought the weapons in on his own. in an original briefing, we believe that he was in partnership or companionship of a female and we have determined the female is out of the country. so he brought these weapons in on his own. as far as method, i don't have the ability to give you an accurate picture. >> was the shooter known to local law enforcement, any prior charges? >> no, not at all. we've checked all the federal databases and local databases and state databases and we had no knowledge of this individual. >> sheriff, are we going to change the designation on the woman who was involved with this man from a person of interest to a possible accomplice or suspect? >> no.

we still consider her a person of interest. we have been in contact with her, and we plan to engage her upon her return to the country. >> do you have any idea how he was able to breakthrough the windows? was able to open the windows? did he smash them? >> it's 12:00 in the east coast. 9:00 out west. we're covering this tragic event that took place in las vegas last night. the worst mass shooting in u.s. history. we're listening in right now to sheriff joe lombardo who is the clark county sheriff with jurisdiction in las vegas. want to go back to hear what he's saying. >> well, obviously, we'll run it down to the very end. but right now at face value, we haven't been able to identify that. >> checked in on thursday, the 28th at the hotel? >> i believe that's accurate. >> did he have tickets to the concert? >> i have no idea. >> do you know what he's done