one suspected gunman is dead. d.c. police say two other potential shooters, at least six people reported to be deceased. that's all for now. andrea mitchell picks up with the d.c. shooting at the navy yard. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports" breaking news, a deadly shooting at the naval yard this morning. talking now about reportedly as many as four dead, 12 others wounded, including a number of police officers. >> you can see a lot of personnel heading to the navy yard. >> it was like pow pow pow pow. then stopped. then pow pow pow pow pow. we just ran. >> how many shots? >> i counted at least seven. >> reportedly as many as four people dead, 12 others wounded

including police officers. >> we have currently received three gunshot victims. we're in the process of caring for them. one is in the operating room already. another will be going to the operating shortly. >> three hours after the first shots were fired, police cornered and killed one gunman inside the facility. police described the shooter as an african-american male wearing all black and armed with an ak-15 shotgun, assault rifle and handgun. heavily armed. s.w.a.t. teams continue to clear the scene and navy yard still sheltering in place. schools on lockdown. nearby streets, bridges and metro stations are still closed. we'll take you live to the team, talk to the eyewitness on the same floor as the shooter when he was in a crowded cafeteria. d.c. police said potentially

there could be two more gunmen at large. >> this is a very active ongoing unified investigation at this point. the fbi has been here fully engaged from the very beginning along with park police, metro transit police, dod naval criminal intelligence. so we've had everybody here along with us all along. as soon as we get additional information we'll push it out. >> largest airlift evacuation operation since hurricane katrina is under way in colorado to rescue more than 1,000 people stranded by the deadly floods. >> how can we ever recover from this? i know exactly inch by inch, mile by mile, community by community. >> hard evidence, u.n. weapons inspectors today report clear and convincing evidence that a large scale chemical weapons attack killed hundreds of people in syria last monday with

rockets carrying sarin gas, banned sarin gas, rockets used only by the regime not the rebels. good morning, i'm andrea mitchell. we're following breaking news in washington where one gunman, police say potentially two more, opened fire killing four people and wounding 12 in all in the washington navy yard. d.c. police confirmed one shooter is dead. they are still looking for two other possible suspects. these 12 people were shot around 8:20 this morning inside the naval sea system command headquarters where about 3,000 people work. it's a revised neighborhood only blocks from the new national stadium. one d.c. metro police officer in surgery at this hour after being shot in both legs. two women doctors say they have multiple gunshot wounds in the head, hand, shoulder. they are listed in critical condition. joining me now tom costello from outside the naval yard, and pete williams. tom, lets go to you.

what's the latest? >> i can tell you the tension has dropped dramatically over the past hour. we're about four or five blocks from the navy yard, on the outer perimeter, i'll ask john to push all the way in where you can see activity. it's been a very busy morning with close to 100 or so police officers, maybe more than that moving in at a high rate of speed after initial reports of shots fired at 8:20 this morning. then ambulances rolling in and bringing victims out, a medevac helicopter come in and police assets in the air, aerial search for whether there might be more than one suspect involved. now, if they are looking for another two suspects, and chief lanier mentioned the possibility of one white male wearing a khaki-type uniform and one blackmail wearing olive green uniform that they might be looking for, if there's a heightened alert and manhunt for them we're not detecting it

here. there seems to be a sense they have cornered and killed the one suspect involved in this. for a sense of where we are in d.c., the nationals stadium is a block amplt the capital building is a mile away. reagan national airport about thee miles behind the camera. traffic was delayed for a while. they put a ground stop in effect as police and medevac helicopter activity was hovering over southeast d.c. at the moment we have a wide number of reported total shot and total fatalities. i suspect pete williams may have an up to date number or better handle at the moment standing here on the scene. andrea, back to you. >> thank you so much. pete is in the newsroom collecting all this information from the fbi, ncis and elsewhere. pete, what do you know? >> andrea, as to the possibility there's more than one shooter, i think that is fading now. the best way to say it is police are investigating whether there could have been more than one gunman.

we know the gunman who apparently fired as far as we know all the shots was shot and killed. we're waiting for authorities to identify him. there has been a name that's been reported. we're told that the name out there is incorrect, that somebody found an id card near the gunman. it looked like him. we're told now that the person whose id card it was is alive and being talked to by d.c. police. so they are till wostill workin identify this gunman. it's believed whoever it is, a man in his 50s, who was wearing all black, carrying three weapons, handgun, assault rifle, had connection to the facility. this was not terrorism because of the fact have you to have a badge to get in, if you're an

employee or contractor, you have to have some business there. they are looking into reports there could have been other shooters. the source of that from cameras that captured the scene around 7:30 when it started. on the surveillance video you can see a white male in khaki uniform, military-style clothing, beret, with a holster, handgun holster. of course this is a military facility, many are authorized to carry weapons. they are investigating the possibility there could have been another shooter no shots fired since the bulk of them early this morning. it's been now a little over four hours since those shots stopped. the prospect of a second or third shooter is fading. nonetheless they want to make sure they get all that nailed down, that the scene is clear and people can begin to come in

and assess how many people were killed or wounded. the best information we have on that, andrea, four people were shot, four of them fatally. that number may change as police get a chance to go through the entire facility, go room to room, and take an accurate census and account for everyone. >> people, do you know, are you able to determine who they are. 3,000 people work in this facility, are they in lockdown, separate facilities? what about the people in the building where this took place. >> they were told to lock down. police are going and clearing the facility room to room. as the rooms are cleared and they are told it's safe to go outside, they are able to leave. until they find out who the person was in the surveillance video and they can satisfy themselves that the only gunman was the person who was shot and killed. >> thanks so much, pete i know

you're working the phones. i want to bring in bill bratton, former l.a. police chief. chief, we had cathy lanier, d.c. police chief saying there were potentially two other shooters out there and this is still an active search. that struck many of us as very alarming but also concerning there don't seem to be any other indications of that from all our reporters at the scene, our local reporters at wrc, tom costello. there doesn't seem to be an active search. can you explain police procedures on this? >> i teach a course on news media relations, the most important word for police chief is preliminary. cathy lanier used that preliminary and appropriately so. what she was dealing with apparently was information there may have been potentially a second or third shooter she

referenced. that was she tried to explain the very large perimeter and the fact they were conducting large searches, based on surveillance video, which i'm sure there's quite a bit on a military base in the nation's capital. i think it's becoming quite clear at the moment, however, it may all been the work of one shooter now deceased. i think the larger confusion at the moment is the potential number of victims. i've only heard reports of three people at a local hospital. the deceased shooter, that comes to a total of four. yet we keep hearing 10, 12 victims that would indicate there are certainly and unfortunately a number of deceased individuals within that building 197. and the press conference they are planning for a little later this afternoon that cathy lanier

mentioned will provide some clarification as to how many people are, in fact, deceased in that building. >> the veteran wrc police reporter pat collins at the scene saying there were reportedly several victims down and being left in place so police could do forensic work at the scene without moving them. >> that's correct. if the individual was deceased, they will not remove that person. they will attempt to certainly ascertain they are deceased. if they are, they are not going to take them out of the discrepancy in numbers of victims is the fact there is unfortunately likely a number of victims in that building. >> and the one hospital, and we're going to go to luke russert at the hospital in a moment, but chief bratton, what we're told is there were two law enforcement officials down. one was the local d.c. metro police officer who is in surgery with gunshot wounds in both of his legs and the other was

supposedly a federal law enforcement officer. we're also told there were two women victims at the washington hospital center and that they had multiple gunshot wounds. they reported what must have been semiautomatic gunfire. that seems to be what happened from reports from the cafeteria, chief bratton. >> some of the earlier reports on this station pete and others reporting eyewitnesses supposedly in the building describing the shooter and his activities in the building. it would lead you to believe there are unfortunately a number of victims. i think the confusion is also on the issue of two law enforcement officers. i've only heard a report of one being treated at the hospital. >> exactly. >> that might indicate there's a second potentially deceased officer in the facility building 197. >> before i let you go, let me ask you in terms of all of the law enforcement agencies, you've got the fbi, ncis, obviously d.c. metro police, who takes the

lead here? you've got bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. who would be in charge? ncis because it's a navy facility? >> initially i think washington, d.c. police as the response entity had the lead, command agreed upon going forward in as much as if there are homicides involved and are on the federal facility, my assumption would be if it's not an act of terrorism where normally fbi takes the lead, that would be the responsibility of the ncis, their investigative arm. these are issues that certainly will be sorted out. one of the problems, if you will, in washington, d.c. is with so many agencies that when you have an incident like this, one of the reasons you have drills and protocols in place is because of the fact to reduce confusion that will arise at a situation. half a dozen in this case. i've counted a dozen agencies that responded here this

morning. >> chief bratton, thanks so much. we'll be returning to you throughout the hour. thank you for that. nbc's luke russert is live outside the washington hospital center. luke, do we know when other vehicles may have been taken to hospitals in the area? >> reporter: there was reports of one victim going to george washington hospital. as far as we're concerned we have three victims, one you mentioned is a metropolitan police officer. the good news from the briefing we got from the doctor at the trauma center, all victims in critical condition arrived at the emergency facility alert, obviously in severe pain, but they were able to have conversations with their doctors. the doctor who briefed us said the conversation she had with the victims, she believes being an experienced doctor with a lot of shootings in washington, d.c. it's a semiautomatic weapon. the victims described a rapid succession of gunfire, bang bang

bang bang. the officer here in the or. we believe he's no longer there are. sort of gotten out of there, listing critical but stable condition. there's a heavy police presence at the hospital, andrea. there are guards stationed out front. when you walk around the facility, there's a lot of plain clothesed metropolitan police officers making sure everyone on the grounds are supposed to be there. the doctor told us more reports of deceased victims who will not receive care obviously because they were deceased. . >> we just lost that signal from luke russert. we'll get back to him later. rick mason on the phone, an administrative special in the building, eyewitness to the shootings that took place. i understand you're a civilian working in the facility, there's about 3,000 employees working there. tell me what happened this

morning. >> good morning. i was working in the office when the shooting occurred. i heard the rapid shots going on. naturally i assumed some of the facilities personnel were doing some work in the building, which is common. then as time went on, one of the managers came out and said we need to leave the building because there was a shooting taking place. i didn't see the actual shooter, but one of my co-workers said he noticed a guy standing there with a shotgun on the fourth floor, over the overlook to the first floor area and shooting people as they are walking around the cafeteria, which is located on the first floor. >> is this an open atrium area? describe it for me, rick. someone could be on an overlook looking down into the first floor cafeteria? >> yeah.

each floor in the building has like an overlooking area where you can look down to the lower levels. this apparently what the shooter was doing, targeting people who are walking through -- walking by the cafeteria on the first floor. so he can look over, down, and to the other floors. >> and you heard the shots. did they sound like semiautomatics? >> yes, they did. >> who told you to clear the building, or did you duck and cover? what did you do next? >> well, one of the managers came out and shouted that people -- for people to start leaving the building. once i heard that, then i realized they were being shot. i immediately got up along with some other co-workers. we all just evacuated the building through one of the stairwells. once we got outside, we knew we were to muster, meaning we were

to convene in one location to give accountability. from that point on, we were instructed to get off the streets and to enter into the shelter of another building. once we got into the shelter, again, we were advised to leave that building and head towards the gate. it was at that point i decided to leave the facility all together and just come home. >> mr. mason, have you done drills? you mentioned you were supposed to muster and go to a shelter. have there been evacuation drills? >> that's part of our routine at the navy. we go through drills maybe three or four times a year for emergency purposes. not primarily with this in mind but primarily targeting fire drills, those type of emergencies. we knew what the routine was,

amidst the excitement, confusion and fear, excuse me, people still, you know, knew what to do and what was expected. >> now, did you use your cell phone? did you call home? how did you communicate while all this was going on? >> yeah. i happened to have my cell phone with me. i started calling a supervisor, co-workers to see if they were okay. i started calling relatives to let them know i was okay as well. then there are individuals there who had blackberries the agency provides to them, they were using them also to make their personal contacts. >> mr. mason, you seem awfully calm. i don't know if you're still in shock. how do you feel? >> i'm pretty much in shock and disbelief at this point. i'm calm, that's because i'm a praying kind of person.

that's what's keeping my calm. >> good for you. >> still i'm feeling shock and disbelief this really happened and so close. my heart goes out to the casualties and victims and surviving family members. my heart really goes out to them. i hope and pray they get to the bottom of this situation and try to work towards making plans to avoid something like this happening again. >> how did you get home, sir? >> what i did was i walked down to the navy yard metro station once they reopened it and caught the train to my final destination. there i met a relative who gave me a lift home. >> tell me just briefly about the security procedures. when you come in in the morning, do you show a badge, go through a mag ne tom ter? tell me what kind of clearance there is. >> when you first get to the gate at the street entrance, you

have to show your badge in order to get in. once you get in, then also you have to -- you have to swipe your badge in order to get into the building. also you have to show your badge to the security guard once you're inside. from that point on, you are okay to go ahead into your working area and begin your work for the day. >> so presumably the shooter, if there's one shooter, would have had to show some id to get into that building or the complex of buildings? >> that's my thought. that's my thought. they had to have some type of id in order to get into the building, which makes me think it was an employee there, or someone who used to work there recently who still had their id or something of that nature in order for them to get inside the building, especially with a weapon. >> and are there bag checks or any way that you go through a

mag? >> there are bag checks at times when security level heightens. people have to, you know, walk over to the side and it have their bags and things checked before they get on the gate and before they get into the building. >> mr. mason, thank you so much for giving us all these details. you said you're a prayerful person and that is keeping you calm. i'm glad you're home and safe, and safe and sound. thank you so much, sir. >> thank you so much for your time as well. >> we will have much more on this breaking news when we come back. first here is president obama speaking a short time ago about the tragedy. so we are confronting yet another mass shooting. today it happened on a military installation in our nation's capital. these are men and women going to work, doing this job protecting all of us.

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for the here and now. that's the wonder of streamlined connections. that's merrill edge and bank of america. ended up on the back side of the building in an alley way, evacuate add bunch of people, pushed them in the right direction to get them out. there was an individual that came up behind us, came up behind me and said, hey, there was a shooter in your building. i heard two more shots. one of them hit him. >> the guy with you got shot? >> yes. >> did you assess. >> he was shot in the head, did not look like he made it, so i ran from there. >> a grim report from a navy commander at the scene. joining me now is nbc's tom costello from outside the navy

yard. tom, just talking to rick mason, an eyewitness that described security procedures, they show them but not regular checks and no magnetomteres. somebody walked in with a firearm clearly. >> i think any of us who cover official washington from time to time, we're struck by how good the security is at any federal building and then maybe the next day or couple weeks later it isn't so good. i don't want to speak to what was happening at the navy yard this morning but clearly they will be evaluating procedures. four shots, one in surgery

having been shot in both legs. the concern is vascular as well as severe bone damage they were saying from the hospital. behind me i would just note that the scene has really come down in intensity over the last hour or so. in fact, we've seen quite a few assets, police and fire and ems starting to pull back from the scene. i think many of us are wondering if there is truly a search for two more suspects as the chief of police suggested. at the moment that does not seem to be intense. pete williams reporting his sources suggesting there was only one shooter and that shooter is, in fact, dead. this is a part of southeast d.c. that has been revitalized over the last 10 years, a lot of new buildings in the area, the nationals baseball park, short distance from the capital, reagan national airport.

in some cases was a rather blighted neighborhood has become a hip and upcoming neighborhood. right now this is really on a lock down situation. area and charter schools locked down. i believe d.o.t. remains on lockdown. you don't see a lot of pedestrians coming and going. you see more and more of official police assets coming in here, state and local, state meaning virginia and maryland and local d.c. police and federal police now starting to pull back as they hand this investigation over to the navy crime unit. back to you. >> tom costello at the scene. nbc's justice correspondent pete williams joins me now. pete, your indications were it was one shooter contrary to what was potentially the situation according to d.c. police chief cathy lanier.

it does seem by what we were just shown by tom costello, there does not seem to be the intensity of an active search. >> the best way to describe it is one shooter, investigating whether there was one or two others but no hard evidence to indicate there were. the best information authorities were acting on was a piece of surveillance video taken at about 8:30, at the time these shootings began at the washington navy yard that shows a man that police chief described as a white male in a khaki uniform wearing a beret and handgun. unholstering the handgun, not clear to me talking to people who have seen it, whether it shows him firing the gun or not. the thing is, it could have been a military person on the post responding to the shooting. they don't know precisely what it is. until they get that nailed down, i guess being extra cautious here, certainly the right thing

to do, they are assuming there could be another shooter. they have been going through other buildings. they have been sending tactical teams into other buildings. they have helicopters looking around the facility. the second person that the chief described, a black male in his 50s carrying a long gun, carrying a rifle dressed in dark clothes is basically the description we've heard of the gunman who was killed. i should say one other thing, andrea. there's been a name some news organizations have reported. we're told that was not the shooter, that the name of that other person is somebody who dropped an id card, who has been questioned by d.c. police, who is very much alive and is thought to have nothing to do with the shooting. they are still working to verify the identity of the one known shooter who apparently fired most of these shots that wounded at least 12 people, killing at least four. >> pete williams on the case as

well as msnbc analyst bill bratton, former nypd boston police chief also, former los angeles police chief. chief, a naval facility in washington and at least one shooter and multiple injuries and deaths, immediately of course there would be a counter-terror investigation among law enforcement responders. is that correct? >> that's correct. andrea, if i may, following up on a dmecomment pete made, following up on the id card found at the scene. preliminary information from our sources indicate that id card does belong to an individual who worked at that facility, who may have been dismissed or let go last week, and that he does bear a resemblance to the shooter who

is now deceased. police went to the home of this individual, have been in contact with him conducting their investigation relative to him. it may turn out to be an extraordinary coincidence that he resembles the shooter, was an employee at that facility, may no longer be an employee there. to give you a sense of what's going on apart from at the scene itself, there are investigations spreading out to include this one in which this id card that was found, may be information of a name put out by other news media sources, in likelihood, this is just a coincidence, if you will. additionally the police are in the process, part of the forensics going on in the building, as you might expect taking fingerprints of the deceased individual to try and

ascertain who he is as quickly as possible, and id card that was found leading police to believe they have a speck, potentially the sect shooter that was being talked about. that has been cleared up but now they are going to try to very quickly do fingerprinting of the deceased individual at that facility, identify who he is and conduct an investigation going forward. >> that is very, very helpful chief bratton. so one of the theories of the case as they begin to investigate this would be that this was someone who might have been a disgruntled employee. >> talk about an amazing coincidence, somebody who would have reason to be disgruntled if, in fact, he had been dismissed. >> we heard earlier from one of the other employees, a survivor and eyewitness, rick mason, who i interviewed, they only need id cards or badges to get into that facility. some 3,000 people work at that navy yard but they don't need to go through anything more

rigorous in security than to have their id badges. i know as a reporter no matter how many badges i have, to get into the capital post 9/11, you have to go through magnetomters. no matter what you have to go through, staff and reporters coming into the federal building. this would be a much lower level of security at this navy yard. >> very telling, what an extraordinary interview, cool and calm, a rangeous man. some of the details he also provid provided. they have had drills if there's an active shooter, whether they are together, do an active head

count. that's example of the era in the post 9/11 era, dealing with terror attack, shooting attack. i was impressed with that level of security and preparedness that they have conducted those types of drills. >> what we have been told, i don't know, we won't be told whether it worked in this case. post 9/11 there was a lot more coordination, communications coordination and chain of command coordination among all of those multiple law enforcement agencies as you point out in the district of columbia you've got federal presence, local presence and all sorts of police units. capitol police, park police, secret service protecting embassi embassies. it's a very complex coordination among law enforcement officials in this area. >> compounding at the military, something you don't normally have in most american cities but in washington they are everywhere. >> police chief bratton, thank you so much. we're going to continue following breaking news in just a moment.

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every little click, call or donation adds up to something big. disbelief at this point. i'm calm, i'm a praying person so that's what's keeping me calm. i'm in shock and disbelief this is what happened. so close. my heart goes out to the casualties and surviving family members. my heart really goes out to them. >> that was rick mason, an eyewitness, civilian administrative employee who described the evacuation, muster they did going to shelter and going home on the metro and described also the disrirills t

did in the past. jim miklaszewski joins me. tell us about the navy yard, people who don't live here, aren't familiar. 3,000 employees. minimal security. they very rarely have bag checks and don't have magnetometers. tell me about that facility and what, of course, you've learned about what transpired here today. >> essentially it's a pretty secure facility. it's surrounded in entirety by a very high brick wall. all the gates -- they are double gates, heavy corrugated steel. you go through several layers of security personnel to get in. if you don't have an id card, your car is pulled aside and searched for any weapons or contraband. you yourself are subject to search if the police -- the base police have any reason to

suspect you may be concealing something on your body. even to get into building 197 where the shootings occurred, there's another layer of security. your normal pass doesn't even get you into parts of that building. so there are several layers of security to even get into this building. it's not clear yet whether this individual was military or civilian, an employee there had his own id card or accessed the building and the base through somebody else's id card. all of that is under investigation as we speak. i can tell you there is an update, andrea, that military officials here are reporting that seven are now dead of the 12 shot and wounded in that incident at the navy yard. >> do we know what the building is, 197.

>> it's essentially the navy sea systems command. it's their headquarters. they oversee a large part of what the navy does on a daily basis. we're not talking about operational deployments or the like, but the navy's very complicated big business on many levels. but they are in charge of the overall navy sea system command. i can tell you the building, 197, in which those shootings occurred today, we're told it was actually constructed to build ships. so when you hear some of the witnesses talking about the shooter on the third or fourth level shooting down into an open area, many of the victims never saw it coming. they probably never saw the shooter because reports are that he was at an upper level shooting down into a food court cafeteria atrium-like level.

there's some reports he may have been on a walkway shooting down into an alley way where at least one was reported by killed, andrea. >> i interviewed rick mason, the eyewitness on the fourth floor atrium shooting down at the people on the first floor cafeteria. just to clarify, did i hear you say, seven, not four fatalities but seven? >> right. the number had climbed to six about an hour and a half, two hours ago. now apparently one of those who was wounded has expired. so the number is seven dead according to navy officials. there could be as many as a total of 15 who were shot or seriously hurt in the melee as they were trying to get out. as far as being shot from above. there was one eyewitness who hearing the gunshots dove under

his desk. he reported -- he was on the telephone talking to people in the pentagon, and he reported seeing the gunman do face-to-face with one of the military police who were responding to the shootings, and at point-blank range shot and at least seriously injured that police officer. >> jim miklaszewski, we've been hearing all kinds of numbers. you're saying seven confirmed dead, as many as 15 may have been shot. we'll, of course, be working to clarify all these numbers as the law enforcement are. richard esposito on the phone. when anything happens like this in a facility, intelligence officials will be looking back and seeing whether there's any indication of a terror link. it may not be the case here. what are you hearing? >> well, the initial reports, andrea, are actually no nexus to terror but they will once they identify the shooter or

shooters, although we think it's one shooter at the moment, they will go back and search every reason that might have caused him to go on this rampage. as mik said, the numbers keep growing. we'll have to see how that comes out. all of the agencies that do national security, fbi, cia, they have all indicated they are watching it closely. so far there's no link to overseas that can be determined. >> as chief bratton was telling us earlier, they are doing fingerprint analysis as quickly as they can and other forensics to nail down the identification and already going to different homes to make sure they have chased down every lead on this. thank you so much. and we will take a quick break. first, vice president joe biden spoke about the navy yard tragedy at an event in charleston, north carolina.

>> more and more news is coming out. i'm not prepared to tell you, because i've been in flight. i did get a briefing from the national security council on the way down that there may have been more than one shooter, et cetera. you may know more than i in the last 45 minutes. but this situation is unfolding and we know a tragedy has occurred, and we're thinking about all the people who are there. how can i be a more fun mom? hmmm. can you dance? ♪ bum ba bum ba bum ♪ bum ba bum ba bum no. no? can you make campbell's chicken noodle soup? yes! [ wisest kid ] every can has 32 feet of slurpable noodles. now that's fun. mom, you're awesome. oh yeah! ♪ bum ba bum ba bum [ gong ] [ wisest kid ] m'm! m'm! good! guys, you took tums® a couple hours ago. why keep taking it if you know your heartburn keeps coming back? that's how it works. you take some tums®. if heartburn comes back, you take some more.

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i ended up on the back side of our building in an alley way. evacuated a bunch of people and push them in the right direction to get them out. it was an individual who came from the building behind us and came up and was talking to me saying, hey, there's a shooter in your building. i heard two more shots, one hit him and he went down and i took off. >> the guy you were with? >> the guy i was talking to. >> got shot? >> correct. >> what was the situation afterward? did you -- >> he was shot in the head and did not look like he made it so

i ran from there. >> chilling eyewitness testimony. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams joins me. mik is reporting seven dead perhaps as many as 15 shot. as more information comes in we're hearing a much grimmer toll. >> yes, and we've been cautioning all along the number will change. we're still trying to sort out whether all of these victims were inside this building 197 or whether some were shot outside. we've been hearing all morning long, some people saying they thought this all started outside the building and then went inside or started inside and came outside and went back in or what. we're still trying to determine that, whether people who were wounded inside the building came out and then collapsed in the parking lot, what precisely happened there is still not clear to us. so again, this number of casualties and dead and injured is undoubtedly going to change and we don't know. it does appear from the best

information we have from this point that the person who fired the shots in the building 197 that you've been talking about, got somebody else's security badge. this is the best scenario we've had so far, according to several officials. used that person's badge to get into the building. that badge was found near the gunman when he died and that's why there was a name initially reported as who the gunman was. it turned out not to be the gunman but someone who is apparently unconnected to the gunman or shooting but whose badge was taken and used to get inside. as for the so-called second possible suspect or second gunman, there's surveillance video that shows somebody wearing this uniform that the police chief talked about, this khaki uniform military style uniform wearing a beret and we're told you can see this person with a holster.

the person leaves the frame of the surveillance video, someone falls in the background. person comes back into the frame but it's not clear whether this person with the holster fired a shot, was shooting at someone who is shooting at the person or collapses or what. it's just a question that that's why the d.c. police department is anxious to find out and is actively investigating whether there was more than one gunman. but the hard evidence indicates there is only one, andrea. >> and according to tom sherwood on our local wrc, this is the garb that many employees wear to work. so the fact that somebody was wearing a military or khaki uniform is not necessarily dispositive -- >> plus, many people there are authorized to carry a weapon. >> exactly. and joining us now as well, nbc's tom costello still outside the naval yard. tom, you've been describing how

the situation has apparently cleared somewhat. we knew that the metro was closed initially then some nearby metro stations were reopened. schools still in lockdown. the capitol police told employees at the capitol a mile away they were not in any danger. what else can you report as we wrap up this hour? >> >>. >> reporter: i think there is generally a sense on the scene that the worst is over and that the police and fire apparatus are starting to pull back. those units that are no longer needed. i'll just give you one last scene as you close out the door. -- close out the hour rather. we did have quite a few emergency vehicles in the line of sight within the past few hours but those have started to now relocate and pull back to their areas of responsibility within the city. and you know, just the demeanor of the police i will tell you and people walking around the streets has significantly improved, not as tense. of course, the news that there

are as mik reported seven dead and 15 total shot is just absolutely appalling here in this part of d.c. that has really been priding itself on rejuvenation and coming back and this is just a terrible day here in southeast d.c. >> and tom, just along those lines, wrc is reporting that the nats against the braves still scheduled for 7:05, people can go to the stadium and players can warm up on the field. we're waiting final word on the game but right now that game has not been canceled. a critical series in this race for the wild card against cincinnati reds. thanks very much to come costello and our thanks to pete williams as well. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports", our breaking news coverage will continue on "news nation" as we continue to cover the tragedy of the shooting at the naval yard

with seven now dead and as many as 15 wounded. one law enforcement officer in surgery at the washington hospital center. my colleague tamron hall picks it up with "news nation." ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you? ♪ when you think about it, isn't that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love? ♪ some kind of... this is... an alien species. reality check: a lot of 4g lte coverage maps don't really look like much at all. i see the aleutian islands. looks like a duck. it looks like... america... ish.

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lanier says one is dead but one could be on the loose. >> we have one that is deceased. the big concern now is that we potentially have two other shooters that we have not located at this point. >> so at the white house president obama has been briefed several times by his national security team on the rapidly evolving situation. >> another mass shooting and today it happened on a military installation in our nation's capitol. we will honor service to the nation we helped to make great and obviously we're going to be investigating thoroughly what happened as we do so many of these shootings sadly that have happened. >> as we reset this shooting began at about 8:20 this morning when police