how exactly this propels one way or the other, but it's clear there's so much more work to do and this is only complicate things, especially as again, you've had the issue issue from the very beginning that you have largely peaceful protesters who are doing nothing more than exercising their rights. >> right. >> but around them among them near them. >> it's a tinder box out there, trymaine. i'm going to ask you to stand by. for those viewers who are just joining us let me set the stage for you. there has been a shooting in ferguson missouri right outside the stage there. two officers have been shot one was shot in the face one in the shoulder. both are said to be conscious, that is very good news. they were taken to a level 1 trauma center nearby. they are being treated at this hour. we want to make it very clear that an investigation is underway and at this point there is zero indication that the protesters who were demonstrating right there in

front of the police department were a part of this shooting or involved in any way. the shots, indeed according to reports came from a hill not too far away and basically across the street 500 to 700 feet away from the police department. according to trymaine lee, it's a darker alley way and parking lot. it's a tree lined street. there are homes in the area. it is not a heavily traveled area. at this hour there is no indication as to who, indeed fired those shots. we are continuing to follow this and gather information here at msnbc. i want to take you now to a press conference that took place a little bit earlier. this is john bellmawr the st. louis county police chief. take a listen to what he had to say. >> captain nelson here from the webster groves police department. >> so at about 8:00 last night, maybe even been a little sooner than that protesters arrived in

front of the ferguson police department on south floreson road. i was actually able to monitor that and talk to my staff about what was going on. as far as the night goes probably 60 70 people that were up there. it wasn't all that remark annual compared to some of the things that we have experienced over the last few months but there were quite a few people in the roadway, sidewalks, in front of the station, et cetera. there was a contingent of police officers out there from other agencies. the night was fairly uneventful. at midnight the crowd was starting to break up. in fact several of the officers had left the area. to the immediate north northwest of the ferguson police department several shots were fired, at least three, and two officers were struck. a st. louis county officer was struck in the shoulder and a

webster groves police officer was struck in the face. both those officers are here right now. they're being treated. i don't have an official status on what their condition is right now. they are conscious, however, those are very serious gunshot injuries to be able to sustain in your upper torso and certainly in your face. they're being treated right now. the officers will not be identified at this point other than the fact that the st. louis county police officer is 41 years old. he's a 14-year veteran of law enforcement and then we have the webster groves officer who is 32 years old and he's been on the department for approximately five years. so you know i would like to just underscore if i could for a minute you know we have had an occasion to be involved in many of the events in ferguson since the -- since michael brown was killed, and i think we've been very fortunate as we've moved

forward not to have similar instances like this happen to us. but i have said all along that we cannot sustain this forever without problems. it's not an indictment on everybody that's out there certainly expressing their first amendment rights but when we have seen in law enforcement that this is a very very very dangerous environment for the officers to work in regarding the amount of gunfire that we have experienced up there. now this evening the only shots that we were aware of were the shots that were taken from across the street. in other words, these police officers were standing there and they were shot just because they were police officers. we are conducting an investigation right noud and i'll have more on that later on today. i'll answer a couple of questions real quick. >> to be clear, this was not the people who were exercising their first amendment rights who did the shooting. >> i don't know who did the

shooting but somehow they were embedded in that group of folks. >> can you give a suspect description at all? >> i don't right now. >> do you know exactly where those officers were standing? why they behind the police department? >> no they were on the road standing directly in front of the police department. that's the best estimate i have right now without talking to my detectives. i have not been up to the scene. >> were they targeted or -- can you tell if they were targeted or can you tell if this was shots fired in a crowd? >> no. i would have to make an assumption right now that based on the fact that these officers were standing together and there were several officers standing right there together when this happened that you know these were shots that were parallel to the ground not up in the air. they weren't skip shots. i would have to make an assumption that these shots were directed exactly at my police officers. >> do you know how many police officers were standing together? >> several. i don't have the answer to that right now.

>> as far as the type of gun that was used? >> i don't know that either. >> let's go real quick because the chief has to go back inside. >> what security level can we expect at this point? things have become volatile? what can you tell residents and citizens to expect? >> i would argue at times it's been very volatile in the past. that's what i talk about sustainment. it's difficult to sustain this without injury to the public community and without injuries to our police officers and i think we need to re-evaluate that. that's one of the things i have been doing since my phone rang at mitd night at midnight tonight. we're going to be looking for different ways to approach this. obviously my first priority is to the community but that's followed very, very closely to my police officers and making sure that they're able to do what they need to do out there in a safe manner. ladies and gentlemen, we'll talk to you later on today. thanks for your time. >> you've been listening to jon

belmar i want to bring trymaine lee back in. now that you've heard that press conference, and back to the point that you were talking about and discussing this has become a tinder box, both before even after the doj report that was talking about the police department there in ferguson and the way it was conducting investigations and basically showing patterns of racially biased enforcement. the st. louis county police chief there is saying something very important that he's fortunate that this situation has not hand earlier but, indeed, tonight it has happened. how does that change things now on the ground? >> it creates and complicates the relationship even further, relationship between the community and the police. it's already been extremely, extremely strained. again, it's even more complicated because when you look at the picture and you see everyone protesting in front of

the police it doesn't appear the gunshots we don't know this yet, didn't come from that group. people are saying that the gunfire came from the hill across the street. so while the protesters you know likely didn't have anything to do with this, they're going to be lumped in and people will point to that and say, see, this is why this needs to be suppressed in some way. to say the least there had already been mistrust anger you know this kind of cloud of uncertainty in this community for a very long time now. we have to assume that the most volatile you know, aspects of this and parts of this had already passed. once you make it through august and september and october and the nights of tear gas or bullets, so extreme and had died down for a long time. it may be an isolated incident. at this point what chief belmar is saying who knows who did

this, or why or what police officer was targeted. that's information from outside the scene a little while ago seemed to be a fight among the crowd. who knows if there was some intention and this spilled over and these were stray shots. i don't think at this point it's clear. >> the police chief there said he believes the shots were directed exactly at the police officers. again, investigation is underway. we won't know any more until that is done but in the meantime, when you look at this area and the tinder box that it has truly become what is it that's going to create some kind of peace there on the ground? is it -- what is it that demonstrators want especially in light of this doj report? >> i mean again, one thing is -- before we get to the part of there was i think we do have to be very careful in the way we kind of flesh this thing out because, you know you don't want to assume that the view

view r owe lens came from the protestors. >> no one is saying the protesters had anything to do with it. that has not been said on this air. you were talking about the tensions and the tension was building. following the doj report you said earlier that protesters were hoping that the st. louis county police department would perhaps maybe take over. is that what you're still hearing? >> even more than that. they want the removal and the shakeup of the city. they have the city manager and the chief of police they want mayor knowles to resign. they want a complete restructuring and reconstruction of the city police department. now what form that takes, you know, who knows. as i mentioned earlier, there may be certainly some federal involvement. attorney general eric holder said nothing is off the table in terms of the resources they'll use to make sure change happens.

the doj report heavily expanded upon so many deficiencies and so many -- so many real concerns in the way this community had been policed for a long time that the next step will likely be that federal involvement. people on the ground want total change because for them the status quo has not been working. >> yeah. so far we have learned that what, three top officers have already resigned and we heard just yesterday that the police chief, thomas jackson, announced his resignation on march 19th. >> was that welcome news in ferguson? >> everyone almost to a person said it's a good first step but until you change the culture, you're not changing much at all. for one person to leave or two people or five people and one fired, that that doesn't change the culture of a place. in talking to folks, the hope is

that there will be some real meaningful change and that all the folks who have been involved and oversaw what the doj report said simply in no uncertain terms shook it down and filled the coiffeurs. used animals on people and all the vast array of abuses that they described. still, everyone who took part in that and oversaw that until that has been gone it will be left as status quo and there is no real change. >> now that we've had two officers shot outside the police department, we spoke with bradley rayford, a freelance photo journalist on the scene, his exact words were basically the officers were lined up like sitting ducks. now that we have this shooting two officers shot how does that change the game? >> i think it's going to change the public perception. there had already been a divide on that front.

those who saw the protesters protesting thugs and rabble rousers in the first place, this will only embolden that. they may likely point to that and say, this is part of the problem, look who you're dealing with. police officers, you hear about police officers being so afraid for their lives. so afraid of people they're dealing with. this can only complicate it because they're getting shot. they can only increase the tension and put them even more on edge especially when you know their brothers in arms to say, are being wounded. this can only create a -- tense environment. there won't be an easier one to work in. >> no doubt it's going to increase the tension following this shooting, but what is so really interesting about what happened tonight is the timing of it. we heard the st. louis county

police chief say that basically the demonstrations were dying down. people were leaving. officers were being sent home and then all of a sudden you have these shots that are fired. it's really a bit of a mystery as to who fired these shots, but you know a little bit about the area from which the shots came from. describe that to me. >> reporter: so across the street from the police station there's kind of i wouldn't want to call it a strip mall but on one side you have a tire shop. on the other side you have a few stores like a subway store and a few places. in between there's this street that kind of rises up on a hill into a residential neighborhood. i've walked it many times coming down from parking behind the area. it's dark. there are trees back there and houses back there. and so that's where folks are saying they saw muzzle flashes n that darkened area up on the hill. >> and that's not an area or is it an area that a lot of people

walk through or it's heavily traveled by i guess pedestrians or vehicles? give me an indication of what happens in that area. >> reporter: i wouldn't say it's heavily traveled. there's a residential area. there's no reason to go back there unless you live there, parking there. it's a go between because it connects to the people back there. there are homes back there. where the police headquarters are, they heard shots. the police department is there. the fire department is there. it's a little more heavily trafficked but it's a main thorough hill. once you get up the hill i'm not talking about a far distance it's a strip of road that leads back there. certainly people would be back there going to and from. not highly trafficked. no reason to be back there. >> kind of set the theme for us

about what you know about the demonstrations and the protests tonight. again, at this point we understand that they had knock to do with the shots being fired. the protesters are completely a separate situation and they were doing what they do right, protests outside the ferguson police department? >> reporter: that's right. tonight not like -- not unlike any other nights. they seemed to go out there to kind of disrupt the protests to spike their demands there. seemed to have been some scuffle or two with officers even a scuffle among their peers. in the early hours it didn't appear to be much out there. >> didn't appear to have anything to do with the shooting. trymaine, sorry to be so abrupt. we have to take a break. we do appreciate your information. stay right here with msnbc as we continue to follow this breaking news story. here, try some...

mmm, it is real milk. see? delicious. hoof bump! oh. right here girl, boom! lactaid®. 100% real milk. no discomfort. and for a tasty snack that's 100% real dairy try lactaid® cottage cheese. boy: once upon a time, there was a nice house that lived with a family. one day, it started to rain and rain. water got inside and ruined everybody's everythings. the house thought she let the family down. but the family just didn't think a flood could ever happen. the reality is floods do happen. protect what matters. get flood insurance. visit floodsmart.gov/flood to learn more.

the conference call. the ultimate arena for business. hour after hour of diving deep, touching base, and putting ducks in rows. the only problem with conference calls: eventually they have to end. unless you have the comcast business voiceedge mobile app. it lets you switch seamlessly from your desk phone to your mobile with no interruptions. i've never felt so alive. get the future of phone and the phones are free. comcast business. built for business.

welcome back everybody. following breaking news out of ferguson missouri.

a shooting has occurred outside the police department there. in fact two officers have been shot. one was shot in the face the other shot in the shoulder. both are said to be conscious. they've been taken to a local hospital. in fact a level one trauma center. we don't know any more about the extent of the conditions except for that. we do know a little bit about the two officers. one is a 4132-year-old office from western grove and the other a 41-year-old officer. it's not known exactly who shot these officers but we only know an area from which the shots came. that is an area across from the police department there in ferguson on a hill. besides that it's unknown as to who fired off these shots that hit two officers tonight. i want to bring in jim cavanaugh, he's a former atf special agent. jim, there's very little information as to who may have done this but looking at all

the pieces that we've put together tonight, what are your first thoughts about the shooting? >> well you know obviously, betty, these officers are going to survive. that seems to be the case. they have serious injuries but they're in the trauma center. like the chief said they're conscious so that's the first thing. secondly is they appear to have an aggressive investigation ongoing, both from the detectives and patrol officers immediate response to try to locate the shooters. no doubt they've gathered some eye witness information, maybe some forensics, even a possibility that they could have recovered some shell casings and got some description. we haven't heard those facts yet, but certainly they went after it. they're trying to find out who the shooter is. you know you had on air the journalist who bradford -- >> bradley rayford, freelance journalist on the scene. >> bradley rayford, right.

he gave a good description. he was present. the bullets moving past his head. he saw the flashes, the muzzle flashes from the hill. the chief said the officers were shot directly so apparently they were shot you know from directly. he said it was not a ricochet shot. so you know they have some leads to go on. we don't know if it's one shooter, two shooters. bradley said there was four shots, he thought. so they don't have a lot to go on. they need some help from the public to find out who the shooters are and to stop them put an end to that. >> we're understanding that they're trying to get some cell phone video from protesters who were there on the scene and, again, we want to be very clear, at this point there is no indication that those protesters were involved in the shooting in any form or fashion. in fact that it came from an area outside of that immediate protest on that hill across the street. we don't have an exact distance

jim. bradley was mentioning somewhere between 500 and 700 feet away and as you mentioned, jon belmar the st. louis county police chief said it was directed at them. if these officers were lined up there in their riot gear just watching the protesters it might not be too hard to fire off a shot and hit at least one of them if there are around 50 of them standing there. >> right. and, you know it was a group of officers that were fired into both by the chief's account and by bradley's account. so you know if someone fires into a group of people you know it's a better chance than if you're firing at one lone person standing in an area. we have a group of people. the officers if you look at the video feed that you're showing now, they're backlit also by street lights by the lights of the city building on police

headquarters. so someone who wants to do them harm you know firing. i mean the thing about policing and democracy and police work is the people know who you are. you wear a uniform. you say you're the officers. you're out there so you're going to be very visible. that's part of the risk police officers have to take and they live with. so they're not invisible. they're there. and if somebody wants to you know, harm them they can do something like they did tonight in ferguson. so it's bad. it's bad for the country. it's bad for america. it's bad for everything when people do this to the police and i hope we can get some leads and get the shooters arrested and then you know ferguson can go on with its reforms, the department of justice can go on helping them make their reforms and all the police in the county and the region in the city can do better work and help the citizens have a safer place.

we don't need to have this kind of violence in ferguson anymore. >> how does this affect the police department there on the ground and the protesters? it's been a tinder box, and now you have this two police officers shot. obviously people are going to have natural reactions and emotions to this. how does that work within the police department? what are people being told there? do you have any indication of that being a former atf special agent? >> well, whenever you have an officer shot agents shot you know it's very traumatic to you. you're concerned about those people, their families the department at large, but you're going to act as professionals. i thought the chief did a good job in his press conference. he was very measured and professional, and that's the response that the public demands, that america wants to see. we know it's a dangerous situation. we know you're in a dangerous environment but you are a professional law enforcement

officer and we want to see that professional policing. i think we will see it. you did not see an over reaction on the part of the officers there tonight. you did not see the officers -- the county officers webster grove, ferguson you did not see them just firing indiscriminately once they were fired upon. i think you saw a professional police response to them being shot and the chief's response was professional and i expect that will continue. i hope it will continue to be you know better than they ever had been in the past. there's a lot of problems there as trymaine lee describes it in ferguson and that's going to be worked through. the people want to see the change. officials are leaving changes in the air, that's got to continue. for officers on the line you know they're out there tomorrow. you know they're out there tomorrow night so it's an instant issue of being those professional officers treating

everybody right, protecting yourself apprehending the dangerous people. it's a very complicated job but, you know hopefully we can find out who the shooter is, get these officers recovered so reforms can move on you know independently. >> jim cavanaugh, former atf special agent joining us by phone. jim, thank you so much. i'm going to ask you to stand by because we do have a report from the scene. ksdk k.t. nolan filed this report a short time ago. >> reporter: the latest we know the department the two officers worked for that were shot just after midnight early this morning. to set the scene a little bit, there were demonstrations throughout the night, last night and early into this morning, protesters demonstrators were still here on the scene outside of ferguson. police were in full gear patrolling working the scene here protecting the perimeter of the police department. we're told there were a couple

of arrests, a couple of tense moments back and forth. at the time just after mid night relatively speaking people who were here said things seemed calm when at least three shots rang out, that's according to st. louis county police. as for the officers who were hit, there was a 41-year-old, 14-year veteran of the st. louis county police department and a 32-year-old five-year veteran of the webster groves police department. both of those officers were hit. the county officer was hit in the shoulder and the webster groves officer was hit in the face. both have been taken to barnes. both -- conditions of both officers have not been released so official conditions except to say that the chief says they are conscious and that their families are there with them. we were able to speak to chief jon belmar a moment ago. he tells us why he believes these were shots that were intended for the police officers here outside the ferguson police department. >> i would have to make an assumption right now that based on the fact that these officers

were standing together and there were several officers standing right there together when this happened that you know these were shots that were parallel to the ground not up in the air, not at -- they weren't skip shots and i would have to make an assumption that these shots were directed exactly at my police officers. >> reporter: photo journalist bob hain was on the scene at the time. what he saw matches what the police chief said. it came from the northwest area across the street from the police department up a hill here. there's an area where protest demonstrations have been staged for months now. it was up the hill behind that area where our photo journalist saw what he believes was a flash of a gun, perhaps more than one. that's also in the direction the chief said the shots came from as well but no suspects at least publicly have been described by

police. photo journalist bob haines said when the shots were fired officers did go up the hill into the residential neighborhood here from the ferguson police department. the breaking news in ferguson just after midnight tonight, two officers hit. one a county officer, 41-year-old officer hit in the shoulder with gunfire and webster groves officer here working a detail. a 32-year-old webster groves officer hit in the face with gunfire. and, again their conditions sarah, at this time are not officially -- have not officially been released but we do know that their families are with them at the hospital. system outside the salon. it's more than colour. it's a work of art.

if you want to succeed in business, mistakes are a luxury you can't afford. that's why i recommend fast reliable comcast business internet. they know what businesses need. and there's a no-mistake guarantee. if you don't like it, you have thirty days to call and get your money back. with comcast business internet you literally can't mook a mistick. i meant to say that. switch today and get the no mistake guarantee. comcast business. built for business.

welcome back to our continuing coverage of breaking news out of ferguson missouri. two officers have been shot overnight outside of the ferguson police department. one was shot in the face another shot in the shoulder. both are said to be conscious but in very serious condition. they were taken to a local hospital. now we do want to make note that so far officials say protesters were not involved in this shooting. it's still unknown exactly who fired off those shots, but, again, two officers have been shot outside of the ferguson police department and we of course, will continue to follow this breaking news right here on msnbc. [ r&b slow jam playing ] ♪ yeah, girl ♪

♪ you know, i've been thinking about us ♪ ♪ and, uh, i just can't fight it anymore ♪ ♪ it's bundle time ♪ ♪ bundle ♪ ♪ mm, feel those savings, baby ♪ and that's how a home and auto bundle is made. better he learns it here than on the streets. the miracle of bundling -- now, that's progressive.

well the come back everybody. i'm betty nguyen. in ferguson missouri two officers have been shot outside the police department. one was shot in the face the other shot in the shoulder. one of the officers the one shot in the face was a 32-year-old officer with five years of experience with the webster groves department. webster groves is a suburb of st. louis. the other officer who was shot

in the shoulder is a 41-year-old officer from st. louis county. again, they have both been taken by ambulance to a local hospital and are being treated for their injuries at this hour. we're also getting information from our producer on the ground there, jennifer roller who says the st. louis county police will hold a news conference in clayton around daylight so hopefully in a few hours we'll get a little more information about what exactly happened there in ferguson. here's what we know so far. at least three shots were fired to those officers. two officers shot. this happened around midnight local time there and, in fact with the protests outside the police department in ferguson it was pretty much dying down. people were headed home. even officers were headed home when a shot was -- at least three of them were fired across the street from the police department. those shots hit two police officers and at this point we're just trying to get more information on exactly what happened and especially who fired off those shots. i want to bring in now jim

cavanaugh. he is a former atf special agent. jim, this could be a very difficult case especially from what we're hearing from people on the ground. that area from which the shots were fired is a dark area. it's on a residential street. it's not heavily traveled. it may be difficult in finding who this shooter is. >> right, betty. it's going to be very tough. police officers across the country are all familiar with handling street shootings. this isn't a street shooting but it's targeted at the police. but they can be very difficult to solve. you need the public's help really to give you some information. they're going to be sweeping their intelligence databases to see if there's anybody that can make it a particular threat to harm officers. they'll be considering that. if they can recover any of the shell casings if it's possible it may be not certain it will be, but it's possible they can do some integrative ballistics

identification against prior incidents. they need a witness, somebody to give them a lead on who the shooter could be. very difficult cases to solve. police officers in every city county state in the country have dealt with shootings, you know in the dark of the night from people fleeing, and they're just tough to solve. >> as for these officers we understand from officials there in ferguson that there were at least 50 officers there standing in riot gear outside the ferguson police department. and we do want to give you some perspective here. this comes on the heels of police chief thomas jackson just yesterday announcing that he is going to resign on march 19th. he is one of three, in fact top officials who have announced that they are leaving following the justice department's really scathing reports. other ferguson police departments saying that it engaged in a broad pattern of racially biased enforcement. so that kind of gives -- sets the stage. of course we've been following

ferguson for many months now, but in looking at this and those police officers standing there outside the ferguson police department lined up in their riot gear what kind of protection do they have? >> right. in civil disturbance gear that they have they have their shields, helmets, they have a face masz being facemask, a nightstick, 36 inch baton, sometimes they have a gas mask. but they're not standing there in ballistic jackets. they have their normal bullet proof vest they wear under their uniforms. they're not s.w.a.t. equipped officers they're civil disturbance equipped officers. people can shoot them of course. i mean they're not -- once the shots rang out, then the officers you know they moved to get their long guns moved into a different posture, you know, they advanced up the hill. they conducted themselves very professionally.

they didn't fire isolated shots into the darkness or the crowd. they tried to seek the shooter. the protests were breaking up from what the protesters were saying. the persedispersing. there were only two or three arrests. there was some scuffle in the crowd but it was all pretty minor stuff, not anything extremely unusual until the shots rang out, you know. betty, the good news is that both officers are alive even though the injuries are serious, they're both alive and they're under care at the trauma center. >> yeah. you know as i mentioned a little bit earlier, the st. louis county police chief, not only are both officers being treated but both are conscious and that's very important, especially for the officer who was shot in the face because when you hear something like that it is definitely not a good sign. but the fact that he is still conscious, at least during last reports, is definitely something

that sounds like a little bit of good news in all of this. jim, i want you to stand by. of course we're going to continue to follow this story. we are in breaking news coverage. going to take a quick break right now but we'll come back with the latest information out of ferguson, missouri.

welcome back everybody. as we continue to follow breaking news out of ferguson missouri. once again two police officers have been shot one in the face one in the shoulder. both have been taken to a local hospital for treatment and we understand that there were protests taking place at the time of the shooting but those protesters were not involved in the shooting. it is not known who fired those shots at this point, but it happened at a location that was a little bit away from where the protests were taking place. again, an investigation is underway at this hour and we will continue to bring you the latest on that. i want to bring you up to speed on what local officials are saying. jon belmar the st. louis police chief held a press conference

earlier and i'm going to bring that to you right now. take a listen. >> captain nelson here from the webster groves police department. >> so at about 8:00 last night may have been a little sooner than that protesters arrived in front of the ferguson police department on south floreson road. i was actually able to monitor that, talk to my staff about what was going on. as far as the night goes probably 60 70 people that were up there. it wasn't all that remarkable compared to some of the things that we have experienced over the last few months but there were quite a few people in the roadway, sidewalks, in front of the station, et cetera. there was a contingent of police officers that were up there from different agencies assisting ferguson and the night was fairly uneventful up until midnight. at midnight the crowd was starting to break up. in fact some of the officers had left the area.

to the immediate north northwest of the ferguson police department several shots were fired, at least three, and two officers were struck. st. louis county officer was struck in the shoulder and a webster growers police officer was struck in the face. both those officers are here right now. they're being treated. i don't have an official status on what their condition is right now. they are conscious, however, those are very serious gunshot injuries to be able to sustain in your upper torso and certainly in your face. so they're being treated right now. family is with them. the officers will not be identified at this point other than the fact that the st. louis county police officer is 41 years old. he's been a 14-year veteran of law enforcement. and then we have the webster groves officer who is 32 years old. he's been on the department for approximately five years. so you know i'd like to just underscore if i could for a minute. you know we have had an

occasion to be involved in many of the events in ferguson since the -- since michael brown was killed, and i think we've been very fortunate as we've moved forward not to have similar instances like this happen to us. but i have said all along that we cannot sustain this forever without problems. it's not an indictment on everybody that's out there certainly expressing our first amendment rights, but we have seen in law enforcement that this is a very very very dangerous environment for the officers to work in regarding the amount of gunfire that we have experienced up there. now this evening the only shots that we were aware of were the shots that were taken from across the street. in other words, these police officers were standing there and they were shot just because they were police officers. we're conducting an investigation right now and i'll have more on that later on today.

i'll answer a couple of questions here real quick. >> to be clear, this was not the people who were exercising their first amendment rights who did the shooting? >> i don't know who did the shooting to be honest with you right now, but somehow they were embedded in that group of folks. >> do you have a suspect description at all? >> i don't right now. >> do you know exactly where those officers were standing? were they behind the police department? >> no they were on south floreson road standing directly in front of the police department. that's the best estimate i have right now without talking to my detectives. i have not been up to the scene. >> can you tell us if they were targeted or -- can you tell if they were targeted or can you tell if this was shots fired in the crowd? >> no. i would have to make an assumption right now that based on gt fact that these officers were standing together and there were several officers standing right there together when this happened that you know these were shots that were parallel to the ground not up in the air or not at. they weren't skip shots.

and i would have to make an assumption that these shots were directed directly at my police officers. >> do you know how many police officers were standing together? >> several. i don't have the answer to that right now. >> and as far as the type of gun that was used? >> i don't know that either. we'll figure that out. >> real quick because the chief has to get back inside. >> what kind of security level can we see from this point? obviously things have become volatile. what happens now and what can you tell residents and citizens what to expect? >> well i would argue that at times it's been very volatile in the past. that's what i talked about sustainment. it's very difficult to suggestion stain this without injury to the public our community and our police officers. we need to re-evaluate that. that's been one of the things i've been doing since my phone rang at midnight tonight so we're going to be looking for different ways to approach this. obviously my first priority is to the community, but that's followed very very closely to my police officers and making sure that they're able to do

what they're supposed to do out there in a safe manner. ladies and gentlemen we're going to be able to talk to you today so looking forward to that. thank you for your time. >> you've been listening to jon belmar the st. louis county police chief, talking about what exactly happened outside the police department in ferguson. two officers have been shot one in the face one in the shoulder. both have been taken to the hospital and they are being treated and both are conscious. we are going to continue to follow this story. i'm going to take a quick break right now but we will be back with much more. stay with us here on msnbc. ally proven neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair with the fastest retinol formula available, it works on fine lines and even deep wrinkles. you'll see younger looking skin in just one week. stop hoping for results, and start seeing them. rapid wrinkle repair... ...and for dark spots rapid tone repair. from neutrogena®. just because i'm away from my desk doesn't mean i'm not working.

comcast business understands that. their wifi isn't just fast near the router. it's fast in the break room. fast in the conference room. fast in tom's office. fast in other tom's office. fast in the foyer [pronounced foy-yer] or is it foyer [pronounced foy-yay]? fast in the hallway. i feel like i've been here before. switch now and get the fastest wifi everywhere. comcast business. built for business. hey, girl. is it crazy that your soccer trophy is talking to you right now? it kinda is. it's as crazy as you not rolling over your old 401k. cue the horns... just harness the confidence it took you to win me and call td ameritrade's rollover consultants. they'll help with the hassle by guiding you through the whole process step by step. and they'll even call your old provider. it's easy. even she could do it. whatever, janet. for all the confidence you need td ameritrade. you got this.

back now with breaking news out of ferguson, missouri. two police officers have been shot outside the police department. in fact, in front of the police department earlier this evening. they were officers standing outside the police department watching over the demonstrations. around midnight local time we understand shots were fired according to officers. perhaps three, maybe four shots were fired. two police officers hit, one in the face another in the shoulder. both are being treated at a local hospital. i want to bring in jim cavanaugh, he's a former atf special agent. jim, just kind of set the scene for what investigators are going to be doing now because now it seems like it's a bit of a complicated investigation, especially given the fact that we understand that the shooter fired off these shots from a bit of a distance across the street from the police department. >> right, betty.

well you know they're going to try to use eye witnesses to get back to the spot where the shooter was located. you know one of the freelance journalists, bradley reported was near a house on the hill. they're going to try to get to that spot and look around there. is there any spent shell casings, is there any footprints is there any cigarettes is there any evidence that someone was there. of course the shots could have been from a vehicle, out the window of a car, but they're trying to get to that location to see if there's any forensic evidence and then is there any eye witnesses in the nearby residents there that could have seen something, seen a perpetrator, perpetrators seen a car there. gather eye witnesses. as you talked about earlier, the cell phone video from some of the people that were present. the number of protesters there might have you know got some cell phone video or snapped a photograph of something. of course that may not be

valuable. it could be a muzzle flash or dark spot but there's possibility always could have captured a person on foot or vehicle. so they're going to be looking at all of that stuff trying to piece it together. mostly what they need is help from the public. they need somebody to give them a tip, an eye witness to steer them in the right direction so they can get onto the shooter. >> absolutely. and that's a key right now because there are a lot of variables in deciding exactly who that shooter might be. but, again, we understand that there were protesters on the ground at the time. they were even, in fact literally on the ground when these shots rang out because they came from an area that was a little bit of a distance from the police department and, again, an investigation is underway but primarily at this point a lot of people are turning their focus, jim, to the two officers who were shot. i can give you a little bit of information about them. one is a 32-year-old officer from webster groves. he was shot in the face. the other is a 41-year-old, 14-year veteran of the st. louis county police department.

and, of course they are being treated at this hour. jim, thank you so much for your information. we'll continue to follow this story. breaking news at the top of the hour on msnbc's first look.

right now on first look breaking news hours after the chief of police stepped down two police officers were shot during a protest outside the police department. we've got new information. then a new black eye for the secret service including an agent assigned to president obama's security detail. and the latest information on the black hawk that crashed this thick fog. 11 service members are presumed dead. >> good morning. we begin with breaking news out of ferguson, missouri. two officers have been injured outside the police department. one of the officers was shot in the face. the other was shot in the shoulder. at this point it's unclear who shot the officers