good morning. i'm chris jansing, and we begin with the breaking news a violent scene at a high school, although this time it is not a shooting a. male student at franklin regional high school in murraysville, pennsylvania, went on a rampage this morning stabbing as many as 20 people. at least seven of the victims we are told have life-threatening injuries, and we know that in one hospital three were in surgery. the victims ranging in age from 15 to 60. the suspect we are told is a sophomore student who police say went classroom to classroom and stabbed whoever came into his path. the students were just arriving for the day, and this went on for 30 to 40 minutes before he was taken into custody. the parents are now being allowed to take their children home from school, and we will have much more on this throughout the hour. next hour, senate democrats are scheduled to pick up where president obama left off yesterday and try to force the

republicans' hand on equal pay. a key theme in the democrats' 2014 inequality message. the test vote is expected to meet much debate, and the republicans are accusing the democrats of a ploy. >> many ladies feel like pawns, and they find it condescending that the democrats are trying to yuse this issue as a political distraction. >> and that is not the only ongoing debate after signing two executive orders to to try to the narrow the wage gap, president obama dared the senate republican republicans to support the paycheck fairness act. >> this is not about treating the women fairly, but it is the republicans opposing seem iingl any effort to level the playing field for american familyies. >> and that was met with this

tweet. i support equal pay for equal work, and house democrats called it lip service. >> we want a vote and not a tweet. we are encouraged by the tweet, and we hope that it is going to translate into positive action to bring it to the floor. >> we will have much more on this in a moment, but are let's go to local coverage of the stab alg at the high school in pennsylvania. 20 people stabbed and at lease seven with life-threatening injuries. >> reporter: the student that you were talking to, did she describe the situation in the school when this was all happening? >> well, catherine, the girl on twitter does not go to franklin regional, because different high school in the area, but she says that her boyfriend goes to franklin regional and he is the one that she believes is here at prezby, and what she can tell me and i will go over the twitter feed that i have been communicating with her, and she said that he was stabbed in the stomach and life flighted to presby and he is going to remain

in surgery until unconscious to go in, and i asked about what was going on and she said it is a boyfriend and a good kid. he would not provoke something like this, and he was randomly stabbed in the stomach, and he is in surgery. again, i have been talking with her, and the girlfriend on twitter who does not go to franklin regional and she cannot unfortunately tell us what was going on, because she is not there herself, but she is on the way to the hospital with her mom, and she is going to stop by for a couple of minutes to stop by and tell us what is going on with her boyfriend. she tells us that he is a junior and sounds like right now, he is still in surgery here, and we do have confirmation from the upmc officials that there is one person who has been taken here to presby and so we are looking to get information as to what condition he is in, and is he still in surgery, and what the recovery process could be like, but right now, we don't have the answers, but i am certainly digging the trying to find it out for you and as soon as i get updates i will pass it along, but for now, back out to the studio. >> i want to bring in msnbc

analyst and former fbi profiler clint van zandt. good morning. >> good morning sglcht the first call came in 7:15, and what we know is that it is a sophomore male, and seems random and went on for quite some time, and the initial report is 30 to 40 minutes, and 20 people stabbed, and what do you make of it? >> well, one things chris, it shows that guns are not the only danger in schools, and the real danger is emotion. and the danger with the students is when their conflict resolution skills have not been developed. this stabbing takes us back to january 2006 in osaka, japan, and in that case, there were eight students stabbed and eight students killed and 21 others were stabbed in an elementary school. so this is not anything unique to the united states. what is unique, i think, is that it went on for so long, this long period of time without the ability for law enforcement to intervene, and as you know,

chris, at least one of the stabbing victims is reported to be an adult age 60, so that would suggest that perhaps a teacher or administrator or some other adult who happened to be there, too, who also wound up a victim of this individual. >> if you will hold on, clint, because we want to play a little bit from daniel stevens who is a spokesman for the westmoreland department of safety with chuck a few moments ago. >> the man was take into custody by murraysville police within minutes of the initial call, and the police are in the process of questioning him. approximately 20 students were injured, and four of the students serious enough to be flown by medical helicopter to the local trauma centers. >> and so that is an update that we have, and it was 15 minutes, and even at that, it is a long time, clint.

we are told the that he is not only in custody, but questioned. what are the obvious things that they will be talking to this student about? >> well, they are trying to find out motive, and trying to find out if somebody else parties painted, and was anybody else awa aware, and i have dealt with the stabbing victims in the past, and as we know, and we know from the movies and television a that is a very upclose and personal crime which means that the assailant had to get up basically in the face of 20 different people, and plunge that the knife, and in some cases multiple times in him, and the emotion that would have had to drive something like that is very significant. what they are going to be looking for, too, is the traditional keys. what did we miss, chris? somebody like this doesn't just show up one day, and stab people. there are always preincident indicators every time we try to learn more, and we are trying not to miss the signs the next time, but right now, we know who did it, and the question is why did anybody else help, was

anybody else aware, and were there signs that were obviously mi missed that, you know, we are not going to point guilty fingers right now, and we have to take care of the wounded. what we also have to deal with is that we have to understand young people who have the emotions, and how do we identify those who might commit a terrible act like this, and intervene before they actually do it. >> clint, standby, because i want to bring in on the phone, a reporter with the "tribune review" and she is at the scene. what can you tell us from the sxraen? >> i am at the scene, as you sa said, and there are a lot of active tiff, a lot of parents coming in to pick up their students at one of the schools very upset, pu they are very glad that the students are safe, and not harmed. the latest update that we have is that 20 students were injured, and at least four of them flown to area hospitals to just be treated as the hospitals around the pittsburgh area. >> tell us about that area,

about thele school, itself. >> this area is very quiet. m murrysville is very quiet, and lots of housing units, and the school did not have metal detectors, but they had been upgrading the security p procedures in the recent years. >> and we noticed on the website that there was a notice that the elementary schools, the kids were sent home or not being brought in, and obviously, now, they are sending the others home from the junior and the senior high school, a san diego that one big campus? >> reporter: yes, it is. there is a high school, middle school, and one elementary school. there's sports fields, and so, yes, it is one big campus. >> and everything seems to be from the pictures that we are getting right now, a reasonable amount of calm. given the situation. >> reporter: yes. from what witnesses have told the me that is that even at the

beginning of the incident, there was some calm, and orderliness for getting the students out of the school, and getting them herded out to the different schools, and to where they needed to be to be safe. >> renatta, thank you. she is on the scene with us. clint, her description fits one of a former student who we talked to who now works for msnbc who said that this is a k quiet upper middle-class community. the only time that she could ever recall in her time at the high school anyone violating the weapons ban is when somebody brought in a knife to cut a birthday cake. but, what you have said before we went to the renatta struck me is the length of time that it went on. if it is 15 minute, and we cover the shootings so often, and they are over in a few minutes, but the amount of rage to fuel something like that that it could go on that long?

>> yes, again, that is the right word that you use, chris, rage. it is only rage that is going to produce the emotions that is going to allow the adrenaline, the flow through a young person like this to continue to that amount of carnage. and one wonders if the school has a resource officer? a deputy sheriff, a police officer assigned and was he or she able to respond to the situation or where some schools have a roving resource officer, and we know, chris, that we can't put a police officer in every school in the country, and we can't put a armed intervener, but it is cost prohibitive, and again, this is showing one more time as you described a quiet, middle-class, low key school can become the site of violence if in fact you have someone who allows the rage to build up. we either don't identify it, and we disregard it or otherwise overlook it. this is in the worst case scenario to be acted out.

a small percentage obviously, of children or adults act out like this. but we have to be able to identify the ones who are the most at risk, and somehow be able to intervene in their lives before they carry something like this out. >> and cliff van zandt as always, thank you very much, and we are going to continue to follow this story, and we are expecting a news conference perhaps around 10:30 this morning, and we don't know if these are officials or the hospital, but we know that 20 people were stabbed and seven of them with injuries that are considering life threatening and in at least one hospital, three of them were taken into surgery, and we will take a break and be back with more jansing & company right after this. 

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officials in the next 15 minutes, on the stabbing at that high school in pennsylvania where 20 people were injured. we have gotten some new information in the last couple of minutes that an fbi interview specialist is at the municipal building, and he is going to be interviewing that sophomore male who is the suspect. there is also a statement that has been released by governor tom corbett who said that he was shocked and saddened to learn what happened. and he has directed this as the pennsylvania state police is to s a cyst the local law enforcement in the investigation, and other state resources are being made ava available to the community. i assure the citizens of murrysville, says the governor, they have the full support of my admin administration, and we will have that news conference for you when it starts. >> and let's talk about the democrats push for inkcome equality as we look ahead to the november elections. i want to bring in susan page and dana milbank, and thank you

for hanging around through the breaking news. susan, let me start with the pay check fairness act, and as you know, it is not always about policy, but have the democrats put themselves in a good position, and effect the i.v.ly putting the republicans on the defensi defensive? >> well, when the democrats have won, it is widely because of the women voters and we saw that in this 2012 when they did very well with the senate races and in the governor races last year, but it is in fact, a defensive posture. the republicans will make the issue that if the democrats want to talk about equal rights for women, and child care and other issues that the democrats want to talk about, the republicans want to talk about the health care act. >> and dana, is this the best way to go after obama care? in the op-ed, you observed that on equal payday, we saw the

videotape of vance mccallister making out with a staffer, and you said that it could hurt the cause. >> well, he not only used that situation on equal payday, but he fired the staffer. and of course, there is politics with the issue, and they have the advantage, and this is what people do in the election year. the reason it is sticking is not because of the things that the democrat s are doi democrats are doing, but because of the things that the republicans are doing, and just for example this week the house is taking up paul ryan's budget which hits all kinds of programs that disproportionately affect the women from the anti-poverty programs to supplemental security income, and certainly, other programs that benefit men are not receiving the same kinds of cuts from the ryan budget.

that is really the republican's difficulty in this election year as opposed to anything that the republicans are doing to distract from their weaker issues. >> no doubt, susan, that obama care is what the republicans are thinking is going to motivate the midterm voters, and we know that far more people vote in the midterm thans presidential election, and there was a poll conducted by stan green's democracy corps, and maybe some of the concerns of the democrats is what it finds as the american electorate, minoritieminorities women voters who are much more likely the vote this year than in 2012. 72% of unmarried women, and 66%. and how big of a challenge will this be for the democrats, susan? >> well, it is a huge issue, because it is hard to get people out to vote without a president on the ballot. that swup of the challenges that the democrats will be facing in november. and it is one reason that republicans are so eager to talk

about obamacare, because it is an issue that motivates the people who are likely to come out, more educated voters and white voters and so in a midterm e heck shun, and especially the second term for the president, it is all about turn thing out the vote, and it is going to be harder and harder to turn out the votes of the party in power. we know it historically, a that the second midterm for the president is likely to be a good year for the other side. >> and yet, if you talk to harry reid, and you ask him, and somebody did of the chances of the democrats holding onto the senate, he sounds like he feels pretty good about it. let's listen. >> we feel that we are doing okay. that if the election were held today, we would be fine. i am not going to be bothing to anybody here which state does what, but we feel really pretty good where we are. >> and yeah, dana, not

necessarily hold iing on to allf the seats they have, but the majority, and is this wishful thinking or are the democrats generally feeling a little bit more optimistic, since some of the things that happened with obama care have turned a little bit? >> well, he has to say that where he is to not set aside a panic, but the handicappers say that there is an even chance that democrats will win or keep the senate. the bleeding has stopped in tlas week or so, because you can see that they hit the 7 million target on the obamacare and getting the traction with the other arguments that the democrats are making, but soon san is right, the wind is in their face for all kinds of historical reasons, and the democrats have a long-term advantage with the national electorate because of the way that the demographics are going, but they have a short-term problem in that the wind is behind them. so it is going to take years to get that sort of momentum again.

>> and thank you, chris. >> and thank you, susan page and dana milbank. we will go back out to pennsylvania where a sophomore went on a stabbing rampage. we will get an yut date from a hospital that got some of the patients at 10:30, and we will have that for you lye. [ children yelling ] [ telephone rings ] [ shirley ] edward jones. this is shirley speaking. how may i help you? oh hey, neill, how are you? how was the trip? [ male announcer ] with nearly 7 million investors... [ shirley ] he's right here. hold on one sec.

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we are continuing to get new information on the breaking news, the stabbing of 20 people at franklin regional high school at murrysville, pennsylvania. we are now being told that the suspect who is a male a sophomore was actually examineded by paramedics for about half an hour. we were told that he was taken to a local facility, but now apparently, he is being transported to a hospital to be checked out. we don't know anything about what he has for injuries, but we know that among the 20 people who were stabbed, seven have been classified by local hospitals a life threatening, and in five to ten minutes from now, we are expecting to hear

from one of the hospitals. in addition, the school district has put out a statement, and logistical to let parents know where to come to get their kids, and that is all being organized, as you can see from that picture coming to us from murrysville, pennsylvania. we will keep you posted. meantime, this morning, a new spotlight on immigration reform. house democrats just wrapping up with the group fast for families. progress has been stalled on immigration on capitol hill where a bill languishes in the house, and jeb bush got people talking about immigration when he said over the weekend that the republican party had lost its way, and called undocumented immigrants bringing their families to the united states illegally an act of love touching off a backlash that has not let up, joining my is kentucky democratic congressman john yarmouth, pafrt oa group who tli tried to get something done on immigration. and good to see you. >> thank you, chris. >> and so as working on

immigration, does that strong reaction that we are seeing from jeb bush from the right tell us that any kind of immigration reform sun likely? >> well, i don't think. so i am still optimistic that once we get past the primary season, and the filing dates that speaker boehner is going to try to bring something to the 234r50r. the crazy thing about the debate, chris, is that everybody is for immigration reform, and there is virtually no organized opposition to it, and jeb bush said several months ago something more compelling yesterday. he said that no republican would vote for a policy that tears families apart, and japeopardiz the national security and that is what they would be voting for if they don't vote for immigration reform, and so they know that. and so we feel we have enough votes to get it to the floor, and that is why we are putting the pressure on the republican member, because it is about the republican electoral politics, and not the policy. >> and yet, the guy who helped

to get jeb bush's brother elected, seemed to be backtracking on what jeb bush had to say, and this is tuesday, karl rove. >> the point he was making is that people come here by and large because they want to work in order to provide for their families. that is something that a lot of people, even opponents of immigration reform acknowledge and recognize, but he said it in an inartful way and the key is not to make this ker flufl into a mistake, and he is going to be hit by this if he becomes a candidate, and it will be tossed back to him. >> well sh, if it is tossed baco him, it is raising questions not only just about the bill, but the elections coming up. >> well, the republicans will be seen as the party who blocks reform, and speaker boehner knows that, and eventually, it is go g ing to hurt republicansd

not move many votes away from republicans right now in the next midterm, but long term, it will. >> and i am sure that you know that congressman, john boehner said that immigration has been a political football for 15 years, and he has tried to get the house moving on it this year, but reform would be almost impossible if president obama continue s continues to sign the executive orders to change the system. what about that? what about the push by some people that the president should use his executive power to improve the immigration system? >> well, the president is under a lot of pressure, and one of the things that most people don't know is that there are literally thousands of united states citizen children in foster homes, because the children have been deported. and there are human tragedies occurring day after day in this country, and the president is trying to figure out how to deal with the issue, but there are so many elements to the immigration e reform. just this week, the limit on annual h-1 visas which is what we give to the highly talented

workers was reached, which means for the next eight months, none of the brilliant people from around the world can come to the united states, and that is one of the elements that we are trying to correct as well. this is incredibly important reform not just to avert human tr tragedy, but to bring the taxpayers into the system, but to bring brilliant people here to the have and create jobs and become part of the system. it is a no-brainer policy, and it is about no-brainer politics. >> thank you, congressman yarmuth, and thank you for joining us on the show. >> and now with the tragedy there in pennsylvania, officials are saying that it was done because of significant blood loss, but however, they are expect i expecting and are hopeful that the seven most serious injured will recover, and again, we are waiting for the news conference

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at the request of local officials, fbi is bringing in its experts to the school stabbing in murrysville, pennsylvania. we are waiting for the news conference to begin at one of the five hospitals where the victims have been taken. but in the meantime, let me bring in clint van zandt, former fbi -- sorry? all right. so we will wait on clint. we can tell you a couple of things about the fbi role in all of this. they are bringing in evidence and counselors and we are told that a suspect is a male, sophomore from the school, and will be interviewed by an fbi expert, and we were told he would be interviewed at the station, but we were told that he may have in fact sustained n

injuries and the emts looked at him for half an hour, and then he was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, and we know that the state is providing some resources as well. we got a statement from the governor who said that he was making the pennsylvania state police officials available to low cal law enforcement, and other state resources as they may be needed, but i think that one of the things that they are organizing right now is simply getting the students who are in those schools back, and getting them back to their homes. this is one big campus where the high school is. there are about 3,600 students, and nearly 400 staff members, and we know from the age rages of those hurt, one being 60 years old, and one was either a teacher or administrator of some sort, and in that campus, there are three elementary schools and a middle school and a senior high school. and we have clint van zandt now?

a former fbi profiler, and clint, i am not sure if you were able to hear me, but the fbi called in by the request of the local official to bring in evidence specialists and interview specialists. >> well, an fbi interview specialist is someone dealing with a traumatic incident as far as it may concern children. we know that many times there are different interview skills, and techniques that we need. and you know, just a lot of the times, chris, just the jack webb, give me the facts, ma'am, it does not work when you are dealing with someone who is terribly traumatized. and so this person whoever she is, and this agent is especially trained to conduct interviews like that, and that person will either lead the interviews or the interview team to set the mode as to how the information needs to be gathered. the last thing that we want to do so retraumatize these people

who are these young people who have been already through a terrible incident today. >> and clint, hang on, because join joining me is alyssa finch a senior at the franklin regional high school. thank you for joining us. i understand that you did not witness the stabbing, itself, but can you tell uts where you were and what happened inside of the school? >> yes. i was driving up to the school off of the big hill going up to the school, and i saw tons of ambulance ambulances there, and i heard the fire alarm, and i saw everyone walking out of the school. so at first i thought that maybe there was a fire drill, but then i saw a few people hysterically crying and i thought well, that cannot be definite ly a fire, ad people coming down the hill to tell us to turn around and go home. so i pulled in a sub lot, and i staid there for a little bit, but i ended up going back to my park parking spot, and getting out of my car and a few teachers were there, and they told us kind of what was happening and a few students knew what was happen

i ing, and they all told us to move down to the middle school into the gym so we can all stay there. >> and for the students who you saw who were in the school at the time, what did they tell you about what happened? >> alyssa, are you still there? >> i can't hear her anymore. it went away. hello? >> can you hear me now, alyssa? >> we seem to have lost contact with alyssa. and, let me go back to clint van zandt as they try to re-establish communication, and we also talked about the fbi victim counselors who are going to go in, and that is going to include i assume not just the people who were stabbed, but anybody who might need help who obviously has witnessed an incredibly traumatic situation, clint. >> well, as we know, in situations like this, chris, you don't have to be a direct victim, and you don't have to directly even see what happens to be traumatized to experience

post-traumatic stress disorder. so, these counselors will be in there both from the investigative side as well as from the behavioral side just trying to give students and faculty members and parents, whoever, a chance to come in and talk and express how they feel. the last thing that you want to do in a situation like this is to keep these feelings bottled up. chris, i have experienced ptsd, where in riots people have been shot and injured and thing likes this, and i know that somebody who has experienced it, and as well as been a counselor about it, you need to talk about it and many times, you need to say it over and over again. >> okay. this is the news conference at the forbes hospital, oh, no, this is outside of the school. let's listen. >> and wounds to an officer who had the 16-year-old subject? custody and handcuffed. at that point, we called in other resources, and law

enforcement, and emergency management, and medical, and routed to our location, and further checking on the first floor hallway revealed multiple victims. apparently by the knife that the actor had. so our priority at the time was the people that needed treated medically, you know, safety to the staff and the students are our priorities. thanks to the ems and the surrounding agencies with the assistance, and the scene was quickly attended to. the injured were handled and taken care of, and the, like i said, the subject is under arrest, and still the incident was brought to a conclusion at a fairly rapid pace, and i do thank and commend school staff. they played an intra gegral par

this, and we are praying and hoping for the best for all of the victims. we have the cooperation of the westmoreland district attorney's office, the fbi, the pennsylvania state police and many, many, local police departments and ems services. at this time, i won't go into the particular detail of things as that is part of the investigation. we have a lot ahead of us to do, and we have a crime scene that is pretty vast. so it is going to take us time to get through this to talk to the witnesses, and the victims that we need to determine exactly what happened. >> chief, we have been hearing about acts of heroism, and one student possibly jumping in front of the suspect, and saving fellow students from being injured, and can you comment on that? >> not in particular, but i can comment that there was a school principal who had contact with the juvenile, and was able to lead to him being put in custody. >> and chief, we understand that one of the students may have

pull pulled the fire alarm when he saw the attack beginning in an effort to get the school out to clear, and is that in fact what happened? >> yes, the school alarm was pulled, the fire alarm, and again, under these circumstances, it causes chaos and panic, and what we teach and try to talk about is that the first thing that you want the students to do is to run. and you know, upon my arrival and the arrival of the other officers is that we saw a chaotic scene with people running everywhere, and yes, the fire alarm being pulled probably assists with evacuating the school, and it is a good thing that it was done. >> and chief, we saw the suspect leave with the police and put in a police car, and what is the status right now? >> i don't know where he is, but he has injuries to the hands, and being medically treated. >> and how was he taken into custody? >> the school principal had interaction and the school resource officer who handcuffed

him, and that -- >> chief, we have heard that the suspect may have been bullied, and could that be part of this? >> well, with that is going to be part of the investigation. >> why was there a weapon not discharged? >> we only do it if we need to, and the situation was brought under control in the best way. >> do you know -- >> was the resource officer injured? >> no, he was not. >> and the only person who was injured is the security guard, right? >> that is correct. >> and was the principal hurt? >> well, i can tell you that he is being looked at, with but he was not stabbed. >> and you said that the security guard had wounds to the stoma stomach? >> yes. >> and can you repeat that? >> will have all of the victims, and we are hearing mixed reports of students and adults. >> all we know is that all are students except for one, a security guard, adult male. >> and can you talk about securing the school, and the

time consuming to do that? >> well, we will be here for a while, and thank goodness for the resources and through the coun county, and the fbi and the state police. it is very intricate process that is going to take a while. and so we will get through it, and it will take a matter of a couple of days to do that. >> and what have you learned about how the staff reacted here today? >> well, i think that the staff, and i don't speak for the school, but i think that at a later point, they will be talking to you, but the school staff is very versed on the emergencies, and the police department works closely with the school district, and the sro is part of that school, and everyday he is down there, and full time murrysville police officer, and we very often exchange ideas on the emergencies that occur. it is my opinion that today as unfortunate as it is, and again the hearts out to the victims and the families, but i think that it could have been a lot worse if there was not immediate interaction that occurred. >> other than the security guard that you described, other security measures here daily,

metal detectors and other security set-ups? >> there are, but i won't elaborate on it. >> 20 injured total? >> yes. >> 19 and one. 19 students and one security guard. >> best we got. >> and can you talk about the life threatening and the nonlife threatening, because the four students who were injured, are those life threatening? >> i believe critical. >> four students in critical condition? >> the best information that i have. >> and do you believe that the suspect knew all of these people or random or do you have any idea? >> we don't know that yet, but it is part of the investigation. initially, we didn't know what led up to this, but it is going to be part of the investigation. >> we heard maybe there was a threatening phone call made last night between the suspect and a fellow student? >> we are checking in on that. >> and do you foe why -- do youy so many students were found in different locations? >> well, again, in a situation like this, you want the students to run, and going back to the fire alarm being pulled, and the

purpose is to evacuate, and you want the kids out of the area, and they did, and they did right. that is what they should have done. >> and what about the -- >> do you know anything about last year -- >> no. >> how were so many injured? >> the juvenile went down the hallway and flashing two knives around and injured the people. >> so like one in each hand? >> i don't know. >> and chief, can you tell us about principal -- >> well, i won't confirm anything right now. >> and did he tackle the stud t student? >> yes. >> and the school resource officer is also a murrysville police officer? >> yes, he is. >> one more question. yeah. >> can you repeat your name, please. >> thomas s-e-f-f-e-l-d, seffeld. chief of police for murrayville. >> so we understand that the press conference at the hospital was waiting for thomas seffeld to finish, but we learned some things, and we will talk to the

clint van zandt as we wait for the second press conference to start, but couple of things, clint, he talked about the vast area where the stabbings took place, and it is going to be an intricate process to process this crime scene, and we know that fbi techs are on scene, and what will they be doing for the next several hours and days? >> well, one of the first things they want to do is to get their hands on the weapons and we know from the police spokesman that the subject who is described as a 16-year-old student, male, was allegedly armed with at least two knives. police chief referred to him as flash i flashing those knives. we know that at least 20 people were stabbed, and we also know that the 16-year-old was confronted by both the school principal as well as the school resource officer, and that school resource officer is as you know normally an armed deputy sheriff or police officer who is assigned to one or more schools, and in this case, 3600

students in this general area between multiple buildings, but probably, that resource officer was there, but could have been somewhere else that took the time to respond. >> yes, and we are told that it is a very large campus, and we heard what sounds like heroic actions of that school principal who was able to lead to the suspect being taken into custody. is that pretty much standard operating procedure what we heard, clint, sound the fire alarm, and get the kids running, and that may indeed account for why there were victims in so many different places in the school over such a wide area. >> well, that is the challenge. that is the upside and the downside, and sometimes when we have an active shooter, chris, it is shelter in place, and close the doors and lock them, and barricade yourself inside, and in this case, somebody it sounds like in the school, and we are not told whether it is an official or even a student pulled the fire alarm. again, there are procedures that every school goes through and every parent knows that your

child -- >> and let me just interrupt you, clint, because we are starting with the press conference at the hospital. >> i will turn it over to the medical staff who will have questions, also, and we can entertain those. >> and the response occurred at 7:30 this morning when we had eight victims brought to forbes hospital. at that time, because we at forbes have trauma team, we had four trauma surgeons available to triage the patients. three of the patients had severe injuries and are still in the operating room right now. and two of them are in critical condition, but they have stabilized. the team responded well. we do have all levels of expertise here, and due to the nature of the injuries and because we are part of the allegheny health network, we have a liver surgeon who is working here right now from the allegheny hospital on one of the

victims. so the three of the students as stated are remaining in the o.r., and the other five that we had are still being evaluated, and i do believe that probably four or maybe three or four of those five will be fine and not have to go to the operating room with relatively superficial wounds and one or two of those may require further surgery. >> can you describe the wounds, doc? >> well, the wounds were all due to -- they were all knife wounds, and most of them to the lower abdomen and they seem to have almost a pattern. most of them to the right lower abdomen and in the right flank which created the criticality of the wounds and the nature of the injuries. >> and with those in the o.r. this morning, do they have significant injuries to the internal organs? >> yes, they do. to summarize to a degree, two of

them have relatively serious injuries to the abdominal organs and undergoing surgery right now, and another one has injuries to the upper abdomen, and also operated on, but relatively stable. >> and puncture wounds or slashes? >> puncture wounds. >> stab wounds? >> stab wounds. >> how deep would you say? >> well, i know nothing about the perpetrator or anything about how they occurred, because we were just dealing with the victims, but i would have to say they are deep penetrating injuries. >> so initially when the injuries came in, what was the immediate response and who did you at the end to first and what was the response? >> the response was done by the trauma surgeons, and actually a collection of almost all of the surgeons in the house responded. i look up and i think that i saw 20 surgeons in the emergency are room ready to respond to the

injury injuries. i practice at this hospital for a majority of the not all of my career, and i looked around and i saw the team of nurses, anesthesiologist anesthesiologists and surgeons, and we were ready to handle whatever came through the door. now, because of the trauma se certification that we have, we had four trauma surgeons there, and the trauma surgeons did the initial management of the surgeries and they were quickly triaged and taken to the emergency room. >> emotions had to be running high, and i can see that you are getting overcome with the emotion now, and briefly overcome earlier in the emotions. can you explain -- >> well, i'm a gynecologist, and these kids are mostly likely the kids that we have delivered and treated their moms, and if i'm emotional, maybe it is coming out now as opposed to earlier. the response was a clinical

response and the team did what they have to do, and one thing about being a doctor that lives in the community that you serve, you can become emotional, because these are your friends and neighbors, in addition to the patients, but i was proud of the response. >> and doctor, was the clock ticking on the students and was it critical to get them treated as soon as possible? >> the three in the o.r. were critical and the response absolutely was ticking. >> were they able to communicate at all or alert? >> i would say that two of them actually had understood gone intubation in the field. and the critical part as well is that the paramedics that responded to the nature of the injuries were unbelievable. i even think that from my understanding of the story of a friend who helped respond to one of the victims. so, they came in appropriately managed in the field. i think that one already was intubated and had the

intratracheal tube established and so the critical response that brought these students in, and i can say two of them immediately went to the o.r., and immediately, and the reason they were able to go to o.r. after they had their initial stabilization in the emergency department is because of the initial care they received in the field. >> and dr. calfmkaufman briefed earlier expecting all of the patients to survive at this point, and do you? >> i do, but i want to stress the critical nature of the injuries. >> anything to add here? anything else that you can tell us about the response this morning and your part in all of this? >> i originally took the call at 7:30 or around 7:15 this morning that there was an incident at the school, and my role is that i immediately enacted the triage which is the disaster response team, because we did not know the number of victims that we had, and i echo what dr. rubino

said, all of the member ogs of the department and the true collaboration of everybody on the campus is what made the difference and it is a response that we would expect and what we prepare for in drills throughout the year that we prepare for specific event s ths that we ho that never happen, and we do prepare for them, and the preparation served us well today, because we all acted as well as we could given this situation, and again, as dr. rubino said, it is very emotional for many of the emp y employees here in the building, because they live in the community, and they do know the people in the situation, and our prayers goes out to the people who are affected today, because it is far-reaching. >> what is triage? >> that means that we are a hospital that can mobilize teams together, doctors, nurses, and everybody who is available in the hospital, o.r. staff, anesthesia. >> and does that mean that people come in from outside?

>> yes, we had people come in from home until we stabilized the situation, and we had people stay over the shift so that we knew that we could manage the situation, and it is a all hands out to manage the campus. >> how do you do that? a phone tree or -- >> yes, we have a a page that goes out, and soy immediately called the medic command center, and they sent out the page to everyone, and we set up a command center, and each person has a role in the command sen te, and public relations, and, you know, the operation avl management, and staffing management, and physician o.r. management, and capacity management, and we all met in that room, and then we have lists that we have people who are in charge of calling the staff to see where our resources need to be mobilized to. >> do you know how many of the patients are expected to be here? >> we will not know that this

early. >> and can you describe the atmosphere when the initial patients were brought in? >> as the dr. rubino said that we responded in a clinical manner, and respond as we should, taking care of the victims and the families and we have social services on scene immediately, and extra resources called in and chaplain support, and everything was mobilized in two separate areas to care for not only the victims, but the families that we were receiving and made provisions for the families to be cared for, and then we mobilized just about everybody who we could in the building and the atmosphere is one of clinical skill and empathy towards this situation that has touched the community today. >> and where are the families right now, and what is being done to assist them? >> we have many supports in place from the social services to the psychological support and

offerings being arranged for the victims, the children at the school, and plans to help the school district to deal with this as well, and chaplain support on site, a nd many of te families with their children right now, and we have just finished rounding up some of them, and as you can imagine, very concerned for their child. >> but they are here now, and all of the kids -- >> well, they are in the building, but they would be in separate areas to have their own space, and then some of the parent parents are having to come in from outside of the service area, and having to fly in, and, you know, others, grandparents may have been involved in the, you know, in the growing up of the kids, so we are having to deal with the, you know, the circumstances. >> and when you contacted the children, have they been able to see their children? >> well, about ten minutes after that initial call. >> and i have met with most of them, and we did match them up when possible, and i did talk to a dad flying in from boston for

one of the kids in the operating room, and everybody has reached out a and the clergy has responded and meeting with some of the parents and so i think that it is being managed well right now. it is never out of control. the parents came in, and they were all appropriate, and we did not have anything that -- we did not have any other unlikely response for parents to pull up to check to see if their child would be here. >> and how did you do that, because they did not know what condition their children were in? >> correct. >> and can you describe that initial phone call when you say we need you and this is happening and i know that clinically, you have to react and you know what to do, but there has to be some sort of emotional feelings coming into that, and thinking, oh, my, god, this is happen iing. >> well, it was interesting. i was just getting ready to see a patient in this building actually, in my clinical office, and when i, and i immediately went to the emergency department, and by the time i arrived to the emergency

department, the teams were in place. nobody had come yet, but the teams were all in place. and dr. kauffman who heads the trauma team was there to be ready to triage the patients, and as they came n they were appropriately placed in the rooms according to the level of severity, and so that the team was ready. in addition to that, all of the other surgeons responded in the house. so we had cardiovascular surgeons and neurologists and they were all there ready to assist and help, and the services were utilized as needed. >> have any of the patients been released yet and do you anticipate anybody being released today? >> i don't have any off that information right now. >> we dot no anticipate at this time, any discharges of the children today. >> and doctor, are these, sorry, multiple wounds on these critical parents or one stab wound each or how would you characterize the wounds themselves? >> i'm not really exactly sure with how many had multiple as

opposed to a large single stab wound. again, i'm not really aware of the events that occurred at the hospital, and at the school, and what was described there. but, the students that are in the operating room had pretty severe injuries with the pretty penetrating affecting them. >> and going forward with the stab wound, and any other injury, what is that like, recovery wise? what can you expect to see? >> well, you can't, and the one thing about youth is that they are resilient. you know. someone who is younger, and strong can often tolerate these injuries than someone else. but a penetrating injury has to be evaluated as to what organs were affected, and that is what creates the critical nature of the injuries. >> can you