does not appear to be an individual that can cause any harm. and it also, we can surmise, that the number of rounds that would be required here to bring about this kind of carnage is going to be, to jim's point, to clint's point, you know, let's not wildly speculate, but we're going to learn hours from now, days from now about someone who did some elaborate planning for this moment and did some multiple purchases and was ready to do what they did today. we've had another mass casualty event on another campus. this time a community college. and this was -- had quite a history, this community college. first course was taught back in the jfk era, 1961 it officially

opened. it was like so many of them, a local effort that rose up. people thought there should be a higher education option for the people this that region. the country is full of community colleges. they really are the kind of educational first responders for secondary education. and a number of us started at them and had no other option immediately out of high school so they've been a great success story. they're also places where people gather and places where, apparently, today an individual, a motivated individual, perhaps a troubled individual has caused great damage. local hospital has treated a number of people, according to our fire department fire marshal there locally in the public information officer, the grievously wounded would be presumably helicoptered to a

next level medical facility. we are waiting to bring in live coverage from our station there, which should shed some more light on it. we presume helicopters of all kinds are headed there. if you're familiar with the pacific northwest, this is along the i-5 corridor in the state of oregon. about 3,000 full-time students but that never tells the whole story of community colleges. they serve traditionally thousands more on a part-time level and this had a number of continuing education adult students. these are early aerials. this is exactly what i was talking about, kgw's helicopter heading from portland south to this campus. they will either hover over it or find a landing zone. these are the first still photos that came into us off their website of the emergency room

entrance. and one of them appears to be on campus. unclear which of the campus buildings was the location for this shooting. we still don't have any information on the alleged gunman here except that people have said he has been neutralized. don't know when that means killed, captured or wounded. and still the death toll, seven to ten is the range. kgw television is using locally. that's certainly being borne out on social media. thomas roberts along with us, part of the coverage. >> so brian, yeah, we're looking at different reactions that have come in via social media from different students that were on campus. and it is heartbreaking to see a lot of the events that are coming in. first person accounts saying holy god, this the scariest thing that i have ever seen. mercy medical center is the

trauma center that is accepting certain casualties from the umpqua campus, this community college of rough by 3300 students. but we know what they were telling us before, at least confirming for us before, the amount of patients that they have received, six and that four more were on the way. they would not give an update about specific injuries that any of those that were coming from the campus would be treated for there at mercy, but the atf did confirm via tweet that they had sent special agents to the college campus there. they're already on the scene. we're learning more information about what people are saying when they arrive for class today. i'm just pulling this up right now. that this student was arriving for class on my way to school when i got close to campus, waves students, they were running around. i turned around. i heard active shooter.

i'll scroll down. i heard active shooter. and i didn't need to be told twice. this person, larry house, said he had heard the shooting, was in a campus facility called snyder hall, an academic building there, several different types of classes, he said. clearly now everybody is reaching out to each other because we didn't know which of our colleagues was down. he is going on to say we had heard on the scanners about those that were injured and potentially on their way to the hospital. but again, this person, larry house, saying i was on my way to school and when i got close to the campus, waving students running around, i turned around. i heard active shooter and i didn't need to be told twice. brian. >> that's the second, the testimony from that student is the second time i've seen the use of snyder hall. to give the building where this

took place a name. apparently it's an academic building with mixed-use classrooms. nothing notable about it that i have found so far looks like this happened local time 10:38 a.m. looked like it was the fourth day of fall instruction. thomas, we're joined by a kgw tv college of ours, reporter pat doris en route to the scene. pat, are you traveling by ground or by air, and what blanks can you help us fill in? >> well, brian, we're by ground, we're southbound on i-5 after a lot of folks that are heading to the emergency. i haven't heard all of your coverage. but i think it's important for folks to know that this is a small rural town in sort of in southern oregon. and as we are reporting and you folks and everybody else, that there's seven to ten dead. and at least 20 others hurt.

just sensing the shock wave of fear that has gone out across the state of anybody who has a student that attends there or a loved one that works there. just you know terrified about what has happened and who is hurt and who is okay. as you know from covering a lot of these things, it is very chaotic in the beginning and it takes a while to sort the names out. so far no clarification on who is in which category. there's probably a tremendous amount of pressure on the small local hospital there, although i'm certain that they have probably rehearsed tragedy scenarios like this, but it's always different when it's the real thing. we know a call has gone out to all the doctors and nurses who have days off that are off shift right now to get there as soon as possible. >> yeah, i'm guessing all leaves would be canceled and all shifts would be brought in to work, pat. yeah, that matches everything we had come to know, the community

college apparently serves a population body of around 100,000. but the population is no larger than 20,000. and thousands upon thousands of adult students who are going there part time, about 3,000 full-time students. and this ismedical center that is getting most of, sadly, the dead and wounded. we've never hoped so hard for early figures to be wrong. but as we heard pat doris of kgw tv report, they're reporting seven to ten dead in this shooting and various social media reports have had that number even higher. we are joined here in the studio by thomas roberts, by kate snow. and kate, you've been on social media as well and taking notes. is there anything more you can add in the last few minutes? >> we do know from kgw out of

portland, they've evacuated the campus, as you've been saying, and they're moving people to the douglas county fairgrounds. so there's an effort to get all those students to a safe place. so for anybody watching who might have loved ones who are students there, that's where they're going. >> clint van zandt made this very same point. you can drill, you can prepare, one of the staples of local news in this country is usually on a weekend, we will see any city that is home to an airport, the home to a big facility, they will routinely have a drill, a preparedness, a first responder drill. they've dwroen grown in frequen since 9/11, since columbine but quite another thing entirely when the people are real, when you may know them, when they are neighbors of yours. if this is your first mass casualty event. if this is the first death or

wounded patient you have handled and suddenly a rural location, the question becomes air assets, ground assets and kind of sealing off the area. it is absolute managed bedlam sometimes for the first couple hours of this, and then the wave of sadness and shock. what has happened to our local facility, and clint, often the second wave is highly interested in sealing off that scene. this is a crime scene. so evidence, shell casings, where rounds might have ended up, we've seen the flags typically after a shooting or an overturned comb marking where a round was found or a shell casing was found. >> yeah, and this is the challenge, of course, too, the first responsibility as you know as good or better than anybody

as a first responder yourself, is to get in there and deal with the injured, the wounded, to render aid to them, to get them on to a hospital. and many times by doing that, you also affect a crime scene. well so be it. human lives are more important than the crime scene. we'll reconstruct the crime scene some time later. but brian, it's been less than three years since sandy hook. we know that in december 2012, adam lanza went into that grade school in sandy hook and murdered 28 students. brian, since sandy hook, there have been -- i'm looking at my statistics here. there have been 137 school shootings since sandy hook, which is less than three years ago. and there have been 45 school shootings this year. what it continues to tell us is that individuals choose these

target-rich environments, schools, places of refuge, places of learning, places where they know more than likely there won't be somebody with the ability to fight back. and that's not an nra statement advocating the teacher and students carry guns. it's just a statement of fact that individuals go into our schools and act out this terrible way and it's causing schools all across the country to consider do we have more armed resource officers into grade schools, high schools, junior colleges, do we have to have metal detectors at every door? the reality is you can't do it. you can't treat every school like you would an airport when you go on an airplane. we can't do it for trains, we can't do it for schools right now. we rely on people acting as we hope they would, and unfortunately, as i say, 137

times since sandy hook, a shooter has gone into a school and acted out in a similar manner, not as perhaps as big a body count but perhaps with the same type of mentality over and over and over again. >> clint, you're absolutely right. you can't defend every place where two or more people gather. you can't defend every square inch of this country the way we've tried to aviation, what is going to a major league baseball game or a football game in this country. but our society depends on people walking around and behaving themselves in a sane manner. and that has not been the case today at this community college in oregon. hallie jackson in our washington bureau has been talking to some atf officials. hallie? >> i spoke to a spokesperson out

of the seattle office saying there are ten atf agents there to roseburg to assist. you have folks coming in from the eugene and seattle office. k-9 officers are heading there also. eugene an hour outside of roseburg. and this spokesperson brian bennett was telling me it is a challenge when you talk about a distance like this. you've been showing the map of where roseburg is in relation to the rest of the state, the cities in the state and he said it's really hard to assess from the distance. their party is getting there and getting on the ground to help out as needed. the atf no new information at the moment on the firearm, the shooter, the things that they might be typically investigating, all of that, brian, to come with time. >> thank you, hallie jackson. we're joined on the telephone by larry howell who is an active student at the community college, was not on campus at

the time of the shooting but was en route and turned away. larry, i have read your account. you said this took place in a building called snyder hall. can you describe it for us? >> yes, it's just one of the buildings on our campus that's got a computer center. it's just down from the library, really close to the science building. campus center, i guess. >> what class were you en route to today? are you full or part time? >> i'm a full-time student. i had was on my way to a psychology class. >> and is it true what we've been reporting this was about the fourth day of instruction for the fall term? >> yes, sir. >> i'm quite sure you've done a kind of sad mental inventory of

instructors you know who were there at the time, felly students you might know who were there at the time. and i'm quite certain you are very anxious for further information? >> yes. i am. >> how close did you get to campus before you were turned back? >> within sight of it. i was passed by approximately, you know, 15 cars on my way to the campus. i counted. and then when i got there, they were heading towards the campus. that's when i knew something had to be up. >> where are you right now? >> they had other students letting them know there was an active shooter on campus. >> where are you right now? >> i turned around and headed back and started calling the folks that i knew who were there to see who -- you know, to make sure the people i knew were okay. >> what's your location right now? >> i'm at my house. i made it home.

>> and is local --. i live in roseburg. >> is local radio reporting anything that we should know? we're going with this insane figure of seven to ten feared dead and 20 injured. >> well, from what we understand locally, there's ten people that died, two more died en route and there's several injured people that they're getting eugene hospital's ready for them as well. roseburg area hospital is not a trauma one center, mercy, the hospital in this town is not equipped for that kind of stuff. it really isn't. >> and have you talked to anyone who was there at the time? >> no, i haven't. >> okay. larry howell, thank you. kate snow here with us. >> on that point, there is -- on that point, brian, there is another hospital roseburg v.a.

medical center in roseburg just telling us in a statement saying they don't have patients yet but they are indeed on standby in case mercy medical center needs more help and their xhenl health facilities and counselors are available. and unfortunately, they say in the morgue as well. so obviously all the local hospitals are gearing up. you just heard that caller say that eugene may be getting involved. that's a city just to the north of roseburg in oregon. >> and thomas roberts. >> brian, we're hearing there from larry howell who was talking about the fact that he was on his way to campus. and i'm looking over what's being reported by our portland affiliate kwg talking about the fact that at the top of the hour they were considering in tern buildings that they deemed clear to let those students out. but they would be patting those students down. again, as we were talking to clint van zandt and to other people from the fbi thinking is this shooter working alone.

could they be working in connection with someone else. so out of an abundance of caution we also know that more atf aelgt agents were being sen portland. this is coordinate with the atf agents who were also on the scene. they sent out another tweet of information saying they'd send out information from portland to the k-9 team to the campus of umpqua. >> thomas roberts, thank you. we're working to get the coverage of kgw television on to our air. they have switched presumably to nonstop local coverage as well. this is going to be a terrible shock to the surrounding region. we've been showing the map. its relationship to portland, oregon, really well south and

the central portion of the state. but as you can imagine an entire state is coming to grips with what has happened here. kate snow? >> on the i-5 corridor. i actually know it pretty well. my sister lives in portland. north of medford, three quarters of the way down the state. it's a rural area. i was out this last summer. it is not a hugely populated area. as we said on the air, 20,000 people live in that area. just to recap, the oregon office of emergency management telling nbc news now that initial reports indicate that seven to ten people were shot and killed by at least one gunman is the way they're putting it. >> clint van zandt, i fear you're also correct that this will kick off a whole new wave of coverage about gun laws, about the intersection of gun laws and mental health in this country and that in the coming

hours and days we'll learn more about the background of another troubled person. >> well, right now, brian, we're hearing reports of parents trying to get on campus, trying to find their children. as you indicate, the average student is an adult in his or her 30s, yet there are younger people, as we all know, too, who this is their first college experience, 17 or 18. as you indicate, this is the first week of school even that they're there. so there are parents trying to get on campus, they're trying to find their children. in an emergency like this, everybody in a small area tries to get on their cell phone at the same time. when that happens, the cell phones shut down. you can't get through. that only increases the feeling of anxiety when you can't get through to your loved one. when you're hearing figures of potentially double digits

killed, double digits wounded, i can't -- you know, as a parent of three, a grandparent of eight, i can only imagine what anxiety level. we'll see parents anguished standing up saying why can't we do something about guns, about mental health, why did my child or brother or husband or wife have to die in something like this? and brian, we don't have the answers because we don't know the why of situations. you and i can talk about them, we can explain them, we can do these psychological autopsies on a situation where it's over with, but it doesn't seem to do a whole lot of good at stopping the next one. as you and i were talking about earlier, this is number 45 school shootings that's taken place in america so far this year. and this is our biggest problem.

you know, we talk about going to mars. that's a wonderful trip. the greatest trip we still have to take is inside the human mind and how to get people to find conflict resolution skills other than violence. right now that's a trip still to be taken. >> there's a little bit of news to report, too, brian. mercy hospital, tweeting mercy medical center tweeting that they have nine patients being treated, three more on the way. that's just minutes ago. and they also add please continue to pray. >> this is really tough news nor not only the rest of the country but remember locally this will have just a profound impact. it will dominate life for the foreseeable future in this portion of the state of oregon. >> and on social media, brian, already, the # ucc shooting is all over the place. people weighing in.

you and clint were just talking about this, people weighing in with their political views. how many times does this need to happen before we act? >> as we said, this is by nature a commuter campus. there's no dorms at a community college. this is average student age is just south of 38 years of age. 58% female, you see there, 42% male. and a rural area. the community which is most closely tied to as a population just north of 20,000. but it serves i guess a total of just over 100,000 people in the region. >> interesting we just got a note that it is legal to carry a concealed weapon on campus in oregon. the state law due to recent state legislation actually allows the carrying of a concealed weapon. just something to note that's legally admissible in oregon.

>> we're talking about the fact that this will no doubt lead us to learn a whole new back story about someone who perhaps planned for this, perhaps had a troubled background and took it out on others. the building where this is said to have happened is classrooms, some computer labs, but mostly classrooms not far from the library on campus. everything's in lockdown. so new information has been very sparse since the initial word. we are working on bringing in the local news signal from there. we're going to make sure it's rock solid, kgw, our nbc station out there is working to get their personnel to the scene. that has to happen first. and first responders have locked down the campus. kate snow, anything new on social? >> i mentioned looking at our

nbc news reporting now, just another small update that mercy medical -- i told you this earlier that mercy medical has nine patients and three being treated. but then i also saw something about other hospitals involved as well. sorry i've just lost ta. bay city's ambulance transported five patients as well. >> we've seen douglas county fire there, ambulance. we've seen personnel with their uniform markings. we had the douglas county fire marshal and public information officer on our air earlier. we're sorry we don't have more specificity on this number seven to ten dead and upwards of 20 injured. that would indeed indicate a mass casualty event. clint van zandt has told us how many shootings there have been in the recent years in this country.

with maintaining an open and free society and in this case a free and open community college campus, there is no way to lock down and police against this. these are the first still pictures coming into us. this is just a google earth picture of the community college from the air. that presumably is the access road on the way in. it's human nature to want to go to the scene, if you have a friend or loved one you know was there for classes, fourth day of fall instruction. everyone is putting out statements now reacting to this. >> now another statement from another hospital. likely the area hospitals will have to get involved if these are severe traumas and the hospital sacred heart general up in eugene confirms to nbc news that they are expecting three transports to their emergency room in eugene. they're expecting a male victim by helicopter, a female victim

by helicopter and one unidentified en route to the hospital. they say simply, quote, we're expecting more. >> elected officials thoughts and prayers are with the community. all of the officials from washington state and oregon, the entire pacific northwest reacting to this because of the area this will affect. here's our map that zooms into the community college. adjacent to the river there. as we said, it was one of early community colleges in the region. first classes were offered in 1961. it's been around a long time. it's expanded over the years. about 18 different buildings on campus. this was just a classroom facility. happened at 10:38 local time.

shortly after that first word came out that we indeed have a mass casualty event on this campus. clint van zandt, remind us as an fbi veteran, what's important for the early part of an investigation? people arriving on campus. atf, local police, state police, fbi, what are the top five things to nail. >> well, as you know, brian, the first is to tend to the wounded, to get them to various hospitals. that's going to be the challenge. this is a relatively rural area by some standards. as you just indicated, trauma victims are going to have to be sent to multiple hospitals. this is going to overload any type of potential mass casualty plan they may have had in the local area. but in the meantime, as you suggest, city, county, state, federal law enforcement is going to be pouring into this area.

once they get the injured, the wounded out of there, with these plus or minus 3,000, 4s this, this 5,000 students on this 100-acre campus, you have to account for these. by account you have to do building by building, room by room search. and you're looking for a number of things. number one, if you know who is shooter is and you have him or her in custody already, are there other shooters? are there other injured? i've seen these situations before where hours and hours later we still find victims who have locked themselves in closets and basements and other rooms trying to escape something like this. >> i was thinking of that very thing. sometimes when you enter the room, identify yourself as a police officer, they don't believe you and they don't consider it safe. people have crawled inside dropped ceilings and that type

of thing. we'll listen to kgw apparently in the middle of an interview with a fire official. >> our advice, proceed to the douglas county fairgrounds. all students and faculty are being bused there. pastoral and psychological help is available. >> can you tell us what the term "in custody" means on the gunman? is the dpunman deceased? is he still alive? >> i don't have that information at this time. >> what has it been like the last few hours? >> pretty hectic because every ambulance in douglas county, police agency, city and county around roseburg have responded. >> any idea how many officers were there on campus as this was happening? >> no, i do not have that information. >> how large is your force? >> just a minute.

>> talking to douglas county sheriff's office. and he's trying to answer one of our questions as to how big the force is. >> we appreciate gerald's efforts -- >> 109 officers. >> give us a sense of which jurisdictions you were able to draw from. you said multiple jurisdictions responded. where did they come from? >> they came from roseburg city police, southerland police, winston police. >> is this the kind of thing you can be prepared for, gerald? >> no. you know, this is really kind of a shock for a community this size. >> can you tell us a little bit about the college. just it seems like at least a few thousand students who attend there, i'm guessing mostly part time and younger and older students. >> part time, full time. they have a nursing program that has an associate degree and bachelor of science degree. >> so primarily nursing students

there then? >> no, no. that's just one of the programs. >> we heard this may have occurred in the science building there. have you heard that? >> no, i haven't. all i know is that they had cleared snyder building. >> snyder building. >> yes. >> do you know what kind of classes happen in that building? >> i think that's a science area. >> gerald, i mean, from your perspective, do you make your home there in roseburg? >> i do. >> describe what the community is like and what news of this kind of shooting does to a community your size? >> well, it's absolutely devastating. my granddaughter attends there. by the grace of god, she was home sick today. >> oh, my goodness. and so you must have had a moment of panic where you were checking on your granddaughter? >> i sure did. >> well, i know it's a pretty tight community down there, a lot of oregon communities of

that size, you know -- i'm guessing you know most of the people you see on the street down there, don't you? >> yes. >> describe what the college has meant to the community there. >> the college started back in the late '60s. and it has been an integral part of the community for getting a transfer degree, getting an associates degree and transferring on. and also for hike -- >> providing a lot of different opportunities then. >> that's correct. >> are there people who make their life in roseburg, longtime residents. >> my granddaughter is seventh generation. >> did your granddaughter have any reaction to this news? she had to be very, very concerned. >> she was mainly concerned about her friends. >> gerald, how about the hospital down there? i know they must be just

overwhelmed. we heard about six life flight aircraft heading that direction or backfilling the ones locally that have gone down. it must be overwhelming for a smaller hospital to get this kind of emergency it wants. >> yeah, there's only one medical center in the city. so i'm sure that they are overwhelmed. >> so again, though, a plan then to move some of these patients to other areas. we heard that life flight has sent a half dozen aircraft to the area. what about other area hospitals. do you know anything about that, where other patients are being taken? >> i don't have that information. >> well, gerald, your thoughts have been very touching really, i mean, kind of setting the scene for us on what it does to an agency like yours to have to deal with something of this mass. do you have any sort of drills to prepare for this? >> no. we have an organization call ed

emergency services. as soon as we were called we came up and set up all the phones in the emergency operations center. and we have about eight people here taking calls continuously. >> what kind of calls are coming in right now? >> news agencies, al jazeera, univision, turkish radio, kgw, you're on now. >> so mostly handling news media calls. are you handling calls from people in roseburg wondering about loved once or what's happening? >> yes. and we're sending any parents or loved ones to the douglas county fairgrounds. >> what's your impression of how douglas county has responded to this? >> i think it was an outstanding response. ambulances from all the surrounding communities responded immediately. >> you've been listening to the coverage of kgw headquartered in portland, oregon. you can just hear in the

gentleman's voice what a shock this is. to piece this together a bit, it looks like the first call to 911 was at 10:38 a.m. local time in oregon that shots had been fired on the campus of the umpqua community college. you've been looking at the aerial map, east of i-5. it's located -- was built next to a bend in the river. opened in 1961. served thousands of students. most of them older adults. most of them part time and not full time. larry howell, one of them, has been on the phone with us and has been kind enough to wait for us. larry, you just heard that gentleman from kgw. i'm quite sure you can hear him locally if you chose to. anything that he said that should be added to, any description of this building where it apparently happened? >> well, the way the campus

sits, if you can see it from your aerial view, there's a river that running behind it. so there's like a long trail that goes along the back. it's a pretty good-sized campus. and you know, it's a pretty -- it's a family orientated campus is what i want to say. everybody is pretty close knit. and we all just kind of look out for each other. my hearts really going out to the families whose loved ones aren't coming home today. >> this is headquartered near a smaller-size city in a beautiful part of the world. in the middle of some lush territory in central oregon. larry, you haven't had any other contact with people who were there or people who witnessed anything, correct? >> no, sir. >> and how are you holding up? >> i'm just worried about some of my friends and family.

you know, this is -- this is big for here. you know, this isn't a real big community. for something like that to take place. >> yeah. unfortunately, this is big for anywhere. this is going to be a terrible mass casualty event in the recent history of this country. kate snow? >> we're getting some -- >> i'm amazed that every single day now there's a shooting it seems like. >> that's right. that's what we were talking about earlier. >> and now it's in my backyard as well. >> yep. >> larry, we're getting some tweets now. we're seeing people tweeting from campus, a student, it looks like, of course, this is just on twitter so we can't confirm. but kayla marie wrote, oh, my god, there's someone shooting on campus. students are running everywhere. holy god. then her last tweet is, i'm okay physically. we're being bused off campus. hard to even read those tweets, brian. i should say one more thing. the douglas county sheriff -- this is important -- is saying

there is no longer a threat on campus. so as we've been saying for the last hour or so, the person who is responsible for this violence has been neutral lized. we don't know if he's alive or dead but we know he's no longer on campus. >> larry, you should go off and continue to try to find out information o the folks you're looking for. thank you very much for hanging in with us and for talking with us on live television here. 3:40 eastern time. and the numbers, sadly, haven't budged. we're still able to confirm, as best as we can learn from local authorities, seven to ten dead. upwards of 20 wounded. a great stress for first responders, a great stress for family and friends, obviously, and for local hospitals. after this mass casualty incident you just heard kate say

that by all accounts the gunman here has been put down, neutralized is no longer a threat. we've been talking to various people from this region. a huge blow, a huge shock for this part of central oregon. we're talking about an area -- you keep seeing the map. we're trying to repeat in part because of the scarcity of any other video or still photos. we continue to scour social media looking for new imagery. campus is built right alongside a river and it's been a campus since 1961. >> learning more about the hospital. the mercy medical center just mentioned on air is the primary hospital in town, it was the first place for people to go, learning that it does have a level three trauma center. they have a state of the art

23-bed emergency department. so that's good news that there is capacity in the town to take some of these folks. but as we've been reporting, we also know that people have been transported, at least three have been airlifted to eugene, to sacred hart general. also learned on kgw, sounded like they said six transports happening by year. we're starting to get reaction from the political world, from people who just want to reach out and send their prayers. already we've seen tweets from jep bush, john boehner. >> ellen rosenblum has joined us by phone. she's the oregon attorney general. what can you add to our reporting? what do you know? >> i have not been able to hear your full report. i wanted you to know that we are just heartbroken here in oregon, that an act of this magnitude has occurred in our state we're

a small state. a family of community colleges. my department has an office in roseburg. we've number touch with them and with the district attorney. we've been following this very closely. my understanding and you probably have this same information that it's been reported that there are 13 deceased, more than 20 injured, that i think as you mentioned, the shooter is down. i'm looking to get it confirmed that the shooter is now deceased. i'm not in a position to confirm that for you, but i believe that to be true. >> you said 13 deceased. we've been reporting the same numbers as kgw, seven to ten. is that a state figure. where are you getting 13? >> i'm getting this from my -- the head of my criminal justice division. so i assume he's getting some

pretty good numbers. but again, it's all breaking news, so i'm not in a position to confirm other than to say that's the information that i'm receiving as well as information that the shooter is deceased. >> and can i ask you about your gun laws, concealed carry, that kind of thing? >> i'm only in a position to tell you that it's my understanding that it would not have been legal for a concealed carry to occur on a community college campus. there are -- there's case law and statutory law and there's college laws. so it's a complicated area. but that's my understanding. not that it's particularly relevant right at the moment. >> right. and you are learning the same thing we are, that a lone single gunman immobilized. >> that's our understanding. that's exactly correct. there's been some, you know, different reports. but no reports that there's more than one. the report is that the college

is in lockdown and that at a certain point the students will be permitted to go to the roseburg fair grounds to meet with their parents. >> any description of the weapon, caliber, description, anything? >> i have no description of the weapon at this time. >> all right, the attorney general of oregon ellen rosenblum. thank you very much for making time for us. >> thank you for your concern. we appreciate it. obviously, we're not -- we're joining a short list, thankfully still short, but to have a mass shooting of this magnitude here in oregon is just positively unspeakable to us and we appreciate your support and concern. >> thank you. it is a tragedy that it's how we know so many american communities. when you say to someone columbine, aurora, colorado, sandy hook, they will be linked forever with this terrible mass casualty loss of life.

kate snow? >> well, a couple of things we will need to clarify over in next hour what the gun laws are in state of oregon. you just heard the attorney general say they're not allowed to have guns on campus. the national conference of legislatures in washington told us they thought it was, in fact, legal. it's a fine point, brian, but we'll try to clarify what the weapons laws are in oregon. >> various students posting on facebook posts or otherwise on social media that they were in adjacent buildings, that they heard about this, and this was apparently in a building of all classrooms, someone has said it was primarily used for science instruction, someone else said there are a few computer rooms in that building, but we have nothing more on the actual

location of the shooting except to say that the attorney general believes lone male gunman immobilized, no longer a threat. we have no word on the weapon or caliber of the weapon or weapons, and the oregon attorney general is reporting 13 fatalities upwards of 20 injured. that is a higher number of fatalities than first believed. >> and some firsthand accounts are coming in now, brian. this is from a student courtney r renny, second year human services student, my class was in jackson hall away from where the shooting was. i heard what sounded like a car backfiring. you don't even think that's somebody shooting a gun. two or three minutes later a teacher came in and said we were on lockdown, we needed to turn off the lights and draw the

curtains and sit in the corner. we thought it was a drill. then my sociology teacher came if and said it was real. this coming from a 23-year-old student courtney renney. a lot of panic in this post, brian. i'm reading ahead. i don't really know how to react. they prepare you for stuff like this in elementary school and you never think it's actually going to happen. that's a telling statement, too, because these are 23-year-olds who have grown up with active shooter drills. my kids go through them every year, every elementary school in this country now has active shooter drills. >> and a cottage industry, sadly, of classroom equipment has exploded. the whiteboard that can be taken down from the wall of a classroom and used as a kevlar shield against incoming rounds. francis rivera in our newsroom has been looking at reaction on social media. >> certainly chilling, brian, to hear from some of these students who tweeted throughout this.

many of them actually mentioning schneider hall one tweet saying, praying everybody is okay. and based on the coverage that we've gotten from our local affiliate there in the area, they've also made multiple mentions of schneider hall. that's a capacity of 33, 30-plus studentsnd that, but it might show some bearing as to where this took place on the campus. some other reaction from students there, some describing saying national guard was there, fbi, mult ip cop, multiple fire departments, scariest thing in my life. there was a shooter in the building i was getting ready to go into. my heart is heavy. i can barely breathe. i was literally out in the open. i'm so sick to my stomach. my angite is through the roof. also kayla marie describing, oh, my gosh, someone is shooting on campus. students are running everywhere. holy god. then she goes on tweet, hi, guy,

i'm okay physically. we're being bused off campus. as far as family members and students and ones are okay, the office of emergency management has been reporting students and faculty are being bussed to the fair grounds. we heard that earlier from some of the douglas county officials, saying that as far as they know, students there at the community college are being bussed to the fair grounds and that's where they can meet and be reunited with loved ones. again, finding out more. hearing from the oregon attorney general that so far, 13 people have died from the shooting and as nbc has been reporting as well here on msnbc, as many as 20 people wounded. so continuing to monitor this. and again, as we find out more information, chilling but even more so when you have firsthand accounts from some of the people who actually went through it. >> francis, it's just awful to read some of them. it's so gripping.

think about the ripple effect, all of the people wanting to know where their loved ones are and if they're okay. also, we're looking at first responders. anyone familiar with the region, first responders from roseburg, winston, p.d., we're getting these periodic briefings from people. as you know, everyone's being advised to proceed to the douglas county fair grounds, not far from the campus of this community college. and clint van zandt touched on this, for the first responders, some of them, we've been seeing pictures of arrivals at emergency room, some of them are paid, municipal employees. but in a rural area like this, you're going to have all kinds of volunteer firefighters, volunteer emts, dropping whatever was going on, whatever was happening in their lives to respond to this. this is going to be heavily traumatic, obviously, to

everyone who has to deal with it. >> we do know a little bit of news now, president obama has been briefed on the situation. we have not heard from the president just yet but our white house team obviously monitoring that. and just another interesting little note that was handed to me. the umpqua student newspaper, a year ago, brian, wrote an article about security on campus and whether perhaps they should have an armed security guard, which would leave plea to believe they didn't at the time. just interesting you mentioned all of the security precautions that we have now in the wake of all of these school shootings we've seen. but perhaps, you know, they were debating a year ago, how much security they needed on that campus and people talking about the layout of the campus and the fact that there's the river right there and wooded areas. it's eerie to read it now. somebody in the newspaper a year ago, we have a very large campus. were there to be an active

shooter it would take at least two to three minutes for the armed security guard to race up the hill. >> clint van zandt is with us. still controversy in the city of philadelphia about what security did to that city and the kind of ghost town it caused in center city, philadelphia, for the pope's visit, as we all get used to post-9/11 life in this country, you made the point, you can get on a train and not get checked, yet you get on a plane and get checked. you go it a baseball game, other public events, but a lot of things like attending community college depend on sane, rational fellow students to keep it safe. >> it does, brian. you know, in this situation, those oregonians who are of our advanced age, unlike maybe some of the younger schools that the junior college, remember it was

1998 in thirston, oregon, which is a community about 110 miles south of where this shooting took place today in springfield, oregon, in fact, and a 16-year-old expelled high school student murdered his parents and then used three different firearms to kill two others and wound 25. so we have this period of 17 years between these mass casualty indents in those local communities and yet here it circles back around again, brian. it's like -- it's like bad air in an airplane or something. starts in the back of the plane and eventually makes its way up front and then it comes all the way to the back again. and the same thing, that student back in 1998, significant mental health problems. traditional he heard voices in his head, thought the cia put a chip in his brain, things like

that. those are obvious signs, though, somebody was aware of. perhaps his parents who both wound up victims were aware. we still wait today to find out who this shooter was. what was his problem, what caused him to shoot. and, brian, the thing that, as a former fbi profiler, we try to look at, too, not just why he did it but why today. why not last week? why not next week or next month. what was the event? what was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back in this individual and this shooter's mind today that caused him other than what you've already reported is that, of course, campus life just started. campus life where he chose to take so many lives it appears, now. >> absolutely. clint van zandt, part of our coveragen while clint was speaking, these are the first aerials of the campus that have

come in to us. just in line with what clint was saying, what has become familiar, trajically familiar. let's go back to them if we can. the police tape, the parking lot, the gathering of people, the cars that obviously pulled up in great haste, these aerials match the still pictures we've been looking at. though it's interesting to see it here. the kind of u-shape of the campus and we can try judge from the police tape that it's the center building in your picture where this might have taken place. it appears to be surrounded by tape. there's a fountain in the center, lower right-hand corner of the picture. obviously a parking lot full of cars. was probably full before this but a lot of these are first responders. >> brian, expecting the governor

of oregon to hold a press conference about a half hour from now, 4:30 eastern time, 1:30 pacific. >> looking at these pictures along with you. it doesn't appear to be any ambulances, police cars or anyone in a hurry. that would indicate -- >> we've learned, brian from several sources that there is no active threat on campus right now. law enforcement authorities going out of their way to make sure we say to you on television that there's no threat right now some if you have loved ones who were on that campus, they've more than likely been moved by bus to a local fair grounds. that's where they're holding people so they can reunite with their families. of course, so much concern there as people try fine each other as happens every time we have a situation like this, that the instinct is to find your -- the folks you know.

>> we are joined by kristin goodwillie of ktvl-tv not far from the entrance of the community college. can you hear us what can you add to what you've already heard? >> yeah, brian. i am at the entrance of -- going into the community college. it is blocked off. right now we can see school buses coming and picking up the kids. they are going down the fair grounds. it is a hectic event. there are many -- there's cars on the street, parents, friends are all out watching trying to see if their loved ones are okay. >> are people taking seriously this announcement to go to the fair grounds or are people still arriving outside campus? >> people are still arriving outside campus but i do believe they are taking it seriously as well. cars have left. so they -- the parents all know to go to the fair grounds. we've tweeted it out and told

everyone. >> did you know anyone at this community college? >> yes. yeah. there are a lot of people that work at our station, their kid goes to this community college. as you have said, it's a very small, rural town. this college is where everyone goes. everyone is affected by this. >> yeah. we were saying the average age of the student is is just under 38 years old. it has a lot of adult students. and thousands of part-time students serving in an area of 100,000 people. >> yeah. the first -- it was the first week of classes as well. classes started on monday. >> we are -- we've been told by the oregon attorney general, 13 dead. that was a new figure for us, but she said it came from her own people. are you hearing the same thing? >> they are not confirm anything as of now. what we have confirmed is seven

to ten are dead. we haven't heard the 13 number. >> yeah, that -- we were going with seven to ten prior to talking to the a.g. on the phone. we're watching, kristin, aerial photos. you must be able to hear helicopters above campus, of a canine being led around its customary now to sniff all of the vehicles that were there that predated the shooting, especially when you have a deceased gunman. you don't know which -- how he got to campus. you don't know which vehicle is his. so they give the dog a shred of scent to go on. kate snow, do you have something new? >> pictures of the scene she was just skribing where people are trying to meet up and the buss are being loaded up. do we have pictures to show? they're coming in a moment. that's the area, to give you perspective, where people are coming and meeting with students or trying to find their