mika, we'll hand it over to you as our coverage in the shooting in las vegas continues. mika? >> yasmin and ayman, thank you. we continue with msnbc's continuing coverage of the breaking news on the las vegas strip. police say over 20 people are dead and more than 100 are injured after gunfire rained down on to an outdoor concert and transformed it into a mass casualty scene. videos posted on social media captured the music interrupted by the gunfire, followed by confusion and screams. some ran. others dropped to the gun amid a hail of whistling bullets. it all happened about 10:08 p.m. las vegas local time, the conclusion of a country music festival, route 91 harvest

festival. now the associated press reports that concert goers told them they saw muzzle flashes from the upper floors of the hotel across las vegas boulevard. here is the chaos, as described by witnesses, beginning with the police scanner as it unfolded. >> it's coming from upstairs mandalay bay. upstairs mandalay bay, halfway up. shots from mandalay bay. multiple casualties. multiple casualties. >> repeated, be advised it is automatic fire, fully automatic fire from an elevated position. take cover. >> multiple from the chest, legs, arteries. south of reno. >> when we were there, jason aldean was performing. he was like ten minutes in. we heard what we thought were fireworks and it looked like smoke from mandalay bay. he kept performing and we heard

it again and they cut the music and everyone said drop and everyone dropped and everyone got up and they said run and everyone started stampeding and charging and knocking over grills, jumping over fences, getting out. we ran past tropicana, tried to run to mgm. then everyone ran out of mgm saying there was shooting. then we hid in a bush for like an hour. >> clip after clip after clip. bullets flying everywhere. everybody running. it was really, really bad. >> and you said there were multiple shots fired? >> we were the furthest vip stages away from mandalay bay and they were ricochetting everywhere, where we were. they were firing from somewhere high and unloading clip after clip after clip after clip. >> las vegas metro police say the suspect is dead. police breached his hotel room and say he has been identified and is a local resident. nbc's pete williams reporting

that he was 62 years old. here is the moment he was confronted by police as heard on the scanner. >> go ahead. >> on suspect's door. i need everybody in that hallway to be aware and get back. response from this guy to see if he's in here or moved somewhere else. >> copy. 32nd floor, explosive breach. everybody in the hallway needs to move back. all units move back. >> breach, breach, breach. >> wow! police are now searching for a woman for follow-up. her name is marilou daley, asian female, 4' 11," 110 pounds. that's the description. hyundai tuscon registered to the unidentified shooter, who the police describe as a local

resident license plate number 114b40 as well as a chrisler pacifica, license plate number 79d401. we have lots of video already, but the more the better for investigators. police say they do not believe there are any more shooters and that no other places on the strip were attacked. just now, police have identified the suspect to nbc news. here we go. his name is steven paddock. he had a criminal past. we're working on details. 62-year-old steven paddock. joining us now from las vegas, nbc's steve patterson with more on this. steve? >> reporter: good morning, mika. we are at the corner of las vegas boulevard and tropicana. about as central a location as you can get on the las vegas

strip here. we want to show you where we are. police staging behind me. we've seen the operation evolve over time. originally, it was police in full s.w.a.t. gear with long guns. immediately after that concert firing had gone on, police were sweeping every casino and hotel in this area, going from door to door to door to make sure it was cleared. then they pushed everybody back out of here. they swarmed the scene. this is where they've been set up for sfeveral hours. meantime we've been talking to victims, people here along the strip and in that concert location at that venue at the time the shooting occurred. you heard just what a terrible, chaotic situation this was. you're talking about a guy from an elevated position with an automatic weapon shooting into a crowd. people from that crowd filtered out. we spoke to a few of them. one woman said she had to hide into a bush for a better part of an hour, terrified, not knowing

what was going on. another woman was in the crowd when the firing started. it started, obviously, like fireworks or something that was part of the show. i think a lot of people aren't used to the sound of automatic gunfire in this country. a lot of people didn't know what they were hearing. then to turn around and confirm what it was, to see that horrific scene from above and people to get out as fast as humanly possible, that created a dangerous situation on the ground. matt lauer talked to somebody in that crowd, said whoever was up there reloaded some three, five, six different times and you have eerie periods where he's reloading. people are panicked. nobody knows what's going on. and the gunfire starts again.

we've seen buses come through this area, loading bus loads of people and try to take them as far away from this area as possible. i want to give you one last look at the scene. this is what it has looked like for several hours. just about any time of the day there's revelry, people out, having fun. to be on the scene where this is what you're looking at and hearing almost nothing besides police activity, it's incredibly eerie and disturbing here in las vegas, mika. >> i know they're saying up to 100 injuries.

any sense if those numbers could change? >> reporter: absolutely. just the number and amount of chaos and the amount of bodies and victims that were scattered around, people who made it out alive and made it out unscathed, it sounds like the loss of life and at least the impact to life is trauma tic and is going to b dramatic when it's all said and done. it already is when you're looking at 100-plus injured, 20-plus dead. those numbers, of course, could change as this goes on, mika. >> from pete williams, who is working sources right now, the suspect is stephen paddock, 64 years old, from mesquite, nevada. police are searching his house right now. not heard whether he was known to federal authorities but he was known to local law enforcement. police describe the woman that they are looking for as his companion and they were living together. her name is marilou danley, also

a resident there. we'll keep you posted on what we know, the suspect, his background and what could have caused this. retired atf special agent in charge and hostage negotiator. we have a lot of material, jim, of how police broke in to the suspect's room and closed in on him. do you think we'll be able to find out a lot more in the coming hours, given that they have him in custody, dead? obviously his partner is on the loose but they have the location where he did this. tell us what you are hearing in terms of the type of weapon used and how this could have all come down. >> it's a fully automatic weapon, absolutely. submachine gun most likely. you can hear it, mika, as he reloads. it sounds like he's shooting 30-round magazines. there's a delay. people jump up.

they run. and another magazine unloads. that happens a number of times. there's a few different videos. it may be three to five times. magazines are reloaded and fired into the crowd. there's some single shots heard later on as well. he could have fired semi automatic or another weapon. you know, they're going to find out a lot in the coming hours and they already know a lot more than we do at the moment. what's driving this guy to do this? why is he shooting into a crowd of innocent people at a concert? it's going to be something that they're going to be pretty aware of, i would say, once they get into his house, his computer. once they find his companion, mika, if they know she's alive -- those casinos are full of cameras. if she went in there with him, checked in, they would know that. of course, she could be found dead in the residence as well, or she could be somewhere else. we don't know. sometimes these events are preceded by the murder of a significant other, a close person, family member and then

they go on a rampage. but this seems like there was a little more planning with this guy being in an elevated position with a machine gun. that's pretty deliberate. you have to come with all your ammo, break that window, shoot down at that concert. maybe a little more planning than just an impulse event. >> gene robinson and sam stein are on the set here in washington, d.c. sam, it seems like there's no way out for these victims here with the bullets coming from above. you have a question for jim? >> you touched on it, jim, two seconds ago. how sophisticated was this operation? that's the major question everyone is asking. was this some random guy who found an elevated position and started firing or how much planning do we know went into this? what can we take from the limited information that we know to decipher how sophisticated the operation actually was? >> great question, sam.

planning a deliberate effort, you're spot on. as far as sophistication, not so much. i mean, he -- anybody who could get to that elevated position with a machine gun could do this. and their capability would only need to be that they could pull the trigger. he really doesn't even have to aim very well. he's just shooting into a mass of people below. there's not a lot of training needed for this. this is a lot of planning. there is a lot of deliberation. there is a lot of real criminal deep seeded purpose here, whether that's hate, terror or revenge, some of the most likely motives. to do this, to act on a crowd like this, that really takes a lot of deep seeded hatred, motivation. planning, deliberate, specific, deep seeded reason but not so

much sophisticated execution. s.w.a.t. was able to take him out pretty quickly. >> gene? >> jim, this is gene robinson. the weapon that was used do we think it's a semi automatic rifle that was converted to automatic fire? it's not legal, is it, to have a fully automatic or buy a fully automatic weapon. >> well, fully automatic weapons are illegally possessed by many citizens, gene, in the united states, from 1934 to 1986 you could legally buy a fully automatic weapon and register it with the atf. very strict operation. fingerprints, all the documents would be kept in washington. that process kept most of those guns out of ever being used in crime. it was mostly used by collectors who would follow the law. but there was a great market all those years that i was working,

people trying to convert semi automatic guns to fully automatic fire for the clandestine market, the criminal market. that goes on today. there's no way to tell from listening to the gun if it was originally manufactured as a submachine gun or converted to fully automatic fire clandestineely clandestine ly or illegally. there's no doubt, without question, fully automatic submachine gun or machine gunfire. difference is that a machine gun is a much big ger, vehicle-mounted, heavier weapon. this is most likely a submachine gun designed to be carried by a soldier. it could have a bipod. it could have a mount. it could be shoulder fired. it sounds like, from what i heard, it's magazine fed. 30-round magazines, emptied into the crowd. you hear a lull. people are not realizing what's

going on. mika pointed that out. they didn't quite know what it was. and then another 30-round magazine. what i found interesting, he never lets up on the trigger. he never lets up on the trigger at all. a real shooter, military soldier, police officer, we were always trained, shoot a short burst, short three-round burst to acquire the target. not let the gun spear off the target and not waste your ammunition. just to hold the trigger down, that's not the way any trained person shoots. but this guy is not -- doesn't need any training. he's just shooting into a crowd at a concert below. so he just holds it down until he completely unloads the 30-round magazine and then he goes for the next one. as a former negotiator it shows me determination and hate. >> in terms of the type of weapon we're looking at, it's in

a range of weapons. is this something that's easily concealed? and this, i guess, is a question leading to just how planned this was, and thought out. because you have to get up 32 floors, get into a room, get in position and then what kind of size of a weapon are you talking about here? it's not just something you could walk into the lobby with. is it? >> the thing is, it's a hotel. you have your luggage. you could take it in pieces. >> in suitcases. >> right. very easy to get weapons and ammo. you could wheel the ammo in. it's extremely heavy. you could wheel it in. wheeled luggage. it's very easy to get it in a hotel. not hard to get a room on an elevated floor. but it takes some planning.

>> exactly. >> and that's absolutely true. >> that's my point. leads to how much planning was going on here. ayman mohyeldin and yasmin voosoughian have been covering this. >> we've been showing jason aldean's video all night. let's take a listen to our interview with him. >> i thought, honestly, i'm a local. i thought honestly from the smell it smelled like a pyrotech knick. i thought they messed up, that they were going to shoot fireworks and it was misfiring. then it stopped and went again and then it started getting louder and you saw people start

screaming. you see jason aldean run off the stage and from the front of the stage where we were at, where the shooter was, you saw people running, bodies on the floor. and people started running. >> what was going through your head at that point when you saw that body on the floor, going from listening to jason aldean to seeing a body on the floor in your hometown of las vegas, a place you likely feel safe walking every single day. >> well, i mean, it's a complete mind freak on you. you think you're safe. you're at an amazing country concert with amazing artists, having a great time. how somebody can do this is just mind blowing. >> let's go to nbc's pete williams who has more on the suspect. and also his companion, who is still at large. pete? >> mika, we've been told by a number of law enforcement officials that the man responsible for the shooting,

their initial belief based on their identification of him is stephen paddock, 64 years old, born april 9th, 1953. property records and the police tell us that he was living with the woman that they talked about earlier, marilou danley. she's, we believe, 62 years old. this is the woman clark county authorities said earlier today that they were looking for. they're still looking for her. we don't know what role, if any, she played in the shooting. it may have been none at all. we don't know whether she was in the hotel room at the time the shooting happened. we don't know if she was with him in the hotel. some people have said that they thought they saw the two of them together. some witnesses, i should say, some people who have been staying at the hotel said they thought they saw the two of them together in the hotel before the shooting, down in the public areas of the hotel. whether she was in the room at the time, whether she left earlier, we don't know.

big important question about whether she had any idea this was going to happen. in terms of a couple of other details here, we've been trying to figure out what kind of weapon this was. you've been talking to jim carve gn -- cavanaugh about it. we know now that he had several weapons in the hotel room. we don't know whether he used more than one weapon in the shooting, whether he had several weapons loaded and ready to go so he could put one down and pick the next one up or whether he had to reload. that's an important question. we don't know. it's our understanding -- initial understanding that he was shot by the police, who breached the room, blew the door of his hotel room open. we're waiting for confirmation on that. finally on stephen paddock, we're told by some law enforcement officials that he had what they call a criminal

past. that he was known to local law enforcement. in what capacity, we don't know. apparently he had had some run-ins with the police before. i don't know what those are. i don't know if they resulted in convictions. we're trying to find that out. but the important basic question here is why, and authorities just have absolutely no idea at this early stage. they've been searching his house in mesquite, nevada. we haven't heard of anything found there yet that would shed light on this. they're trying to find his two cars that were registered to him acres hyundai tuscon and chrysler pacifica touring. the police have put out the license number locally for people to keep an eye out for. this is what a hyundai tucson looks like with nevada place 114b40. and the other vehicle is this chrysler pacifica touring vehicle, which has a different

pla plate. that's the license plate of the other one. so, they're asking people to help find those two vehicles that are registered to him. we don't know where they were. we don't know if one of them was at the hotel, if they drove to the hotel. this is part of the investigation now. atf will be doing an urgency trace of the weapons, trying to figure out where they came from, where they were acquired, trying to figure out where the ammunition came from. and then try to develop, working backwards-looking timeline. when did he check into the hotel, when did he get to las vegas? when did he buy the weapons? was he in contact with anyone else? those will be important things that will play out over the next several hours. and the local authorities who are in charge of this investigation are getting a lot of help now from atf, from the fbi. perhaps the u.s. marshal

service. i don't know what their role yet will be. all the federal authorities will be available to them. i think it's fair to say, mika, as the day goes by that this number of people that were killed is, unfortunately, going to go up. >> going to rise. >> there's some indication it will be higher than that. a number of people who were injured and, remember, the authorities said 100-plus people were injured. a number of those injuries were critical. >> so, pete, just go through what we do know. stop me if i have -- if i'm taking it a step too far. suspect 64-year-old stephen paddock, known to local law enforcement as a potential issue, it looks like he went from mesquite to vegas, which appears to be about an hour or two hours away, looking at this map, straight down route 15. got a room at this hotel. and as far as you have heard, brought several weapons up into

a room. we don't know whether it's with his partner, marilou danley. she, too, lived in mesquite with him. and opened fire on the crowd at this concert below, 32 floors up. they're searching his house. any word as to whether or not she was seen near the scene or is she a complete question mark right now in terms of whether or not she was involved with this? >> the latter is certainly true. she's a complete question mark, as far as i know, in terms of her potential involvement in what happened here. only information i have is what i've seen from witnesses who say they claim that -- remember, when the authorities put her picture out here an hour and a half, two hours ago, and asked for public help in finding her, then people began to say oh, i saw her with an older man at the hotel. stephen paddock is 64.

she's 62. people claim to have seen the two together at the bar area of the hotel before the shooting. but i don't know when before the shooting. the night of it, earlier tonight, a couple of days ago -- i just don't know the answer to that question. >> and are they giving us any more information? are you hearing from your sources any more information on his story, the suspect's story, beyond the fact that he's known to local law enforcement, what does that mean? >> yeah. that's a question, an important question. what was the run-in that he had with the police? did it result in any convictions? was he arrested? were people calling in complaints? i don't know the answer to that. >> pete, we assumed he checked into the hotel. do we have any idea when that would have been? >> i don't know if he checked into the hotel or someone else checked into the hotel.

but he was certainly in the room on the 32nd floor when the shooting took place. whether he checked into that room or someone else did, we don't know. >> sam stein, pete. is there any information about why this concert was targeted? >> no. why he wanted to shoot anybody, that is a question at this point. they don't know what was going through his mind. perhaps they're learning that as they go through and search his home in mesquite. this is where the fbi can really help. looking at his e-mails, social media, seeing who he was in touch with. what his travels were. it's hard to go anywhere in america and not leave a trail. that's part of the timeline they will build. who did he meet with? did he do this on his own?

did somebody put him up to it? all these questions will be answered during the investigation. let's go to joe fryer inside mandalay bay a few floors above the room where the shooter rained down a hail of bullets to a crowd below at a jason aldean concert. joe fryer, what can you tell us? >> we are in the four seasons, part of the mandalay bay tower. we are on the 38th floor. the sheriff tells us the shooter was on the 32nd floor of mandalay bay. we have been on lockdown ever since this shooting happened. we called down to the front desk. they said stay in your room. you're on lockdown. the front desk still say we're on lockdown. the elevators are not working. there's no way in or out. there's been a strong police presence inside this hotel. we want to show you the

perspective from here. we're going to turn off the lights here. we want to get rid of the reflection coming off the windows. take a look out the window. just across the block that's where this concert was taking place, where the route 91 harvest festival was taking place. so you get an idea of the perspective. we're on the 38th floor. the shooter was on the 32nd floor. we don't know if the shooter was below us, to the left or right of us. as we look around here, all the hotels on this side of the mandalay bay tower, they all have a bird's-eye view of the concert that was taking place and thousands of people who were gathered to watch jason aldean perform at 10:00 tonight, while they were watching this concert. this is a general idea of the perspective from high up above. we're seeing more lights now than we saw about an hour or so ago, as police are starting to move into the area and look for evidence and try to gather what

they can. below, of course, is the las vegas strip. we are on one end of the strip. if you know mandalay bay is on one end and the strip moves forward. for hours now, the only cars you will see on these streets are police cars or ambulances. maybe the occasional fire truck down below right now. we do see some metro buss and do know that buses have been used to try to move people out of this area. mika? >> joe fryer, thank you very much. lot of reporters in place there, covering o.j., the release of o.j. simpson from prison. we're awaiting an update from the las vegas police department from a shooting there, 20 people dead and over 100 injured. [ automatic gunfire ]

>> this happened about 10:08 p.m. las vegas, local time. conclusion of a country music festival near the mandalay bay. concert goers saw muzzle flash frts upper floors of the hotel across las vegas boulevard. videos posted on social media captured the music interrupt bid the funfire, followed by the confusion and screams. some ran. others dropped to the ground amid a hail of whistling bullets. here is the chaos, as described by witnesses, beginning with the police scanner, as it unfolded. >> coming from upstairs in the mandalay bay. upstairs, mandalay bay, halfway up. i see shots from mandalay bay.

multiple casualties. multiple casualty. >> repeat, just be advised it is automatic fire, fully automatic fire from an elevated position. take cover. >> multiple dfws in the chest, legs, femoral arteries south of reno. >> when we were there, jasondean was performing. he's like ten minutes in. we heard what we thought were fireworks and it looked like smoke from mandalay bay. he kept performing and we heard it again and they cut the music and everyone said drop and everyone dropped and then everyone just got up and they said run. and everyone started stampeding and charging and knocking over grills, jumping over fences. getting out. we ran past tropicana. we tried to run at mgm. everyone ran out of mgm saying there was shooting. we hid in a bush for like an hour. >> clip after clip after clip. bullets flying everywhere. everybody running.

it was really, really bad. >> and you guys said that there were multiple shots fired? >> we were the furthest vip stages away from mandalay bay. they were ricochetting everywhere we were. they were firing from somewhere high and they were unloading clip after clip after clip after clip. the las vegas metro police say the suspect is dead. he has been identified as 64-year-old stephen paddock, known to local law enforcement. the police are searching for a woman now for follow-up. her name, marilou danley, asian fema female, 4' 11," 111 pounds. police are asking those with video of the event to come forward. all videos will be very helpful as they piece together what happened. police do not believe there are any more shooters at large and no other places on the strip were attacked.

jason aldean, who was performing at the time of the shooting, posted this on social media, saying, tonight has been beyond horrific. i still don't know what to say. wanted to let everyone know me and my crew are safe. my thoughts and & prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. the governor of nevada has also put out a statement. we go to steve patterson in las vegas. steve, we're getting information from pete williams that the suspect had multiple weapons in the room and also the analysis by jim cavanaugh that he doesn't appear to be a trained shooter, just pulled on to that trigger and held on and just fired endlessly. we're putting the pieces

together but nobody can, at this point, understand why. >> reporter: nobody can understand why. if you have an automatic rifle, if that's confirmed the weapon in this case, to rain down terror in a group of people packed in that tightly. what happened after that, you heard from people in the crowd who thought it was just part of the show. i think a lot of people that maybe never heard automatic gunfire to that degree, particularly when you're enjoying a concert on the vegas strip, it's the furthest thing from your mind. a lot of people pulled out their phones and started shooting, thinking it was part of the show or fire works or something like that. as it went on and the shooter

paused, reloaded, fired again, paused, reloaded, fired again -- what a terrible scenario that must be for folks in those eerie few minutes. >> steve, i'm going to cut you off. just a moment, steve, if you could. we're going to go to joe lombardo, police department here. >> we believe, we're confident but not 100% sure we have located the female person of interest. so i want the people to feel confident and calm in that aspect, that we've accomplished a lot in a short period of time. the number of injured, i do not know yet. we're looking in excess of 50 individuals dead and over 200 individuals injured at this point. that is why i'm portraying it in that manner. now the suspect, i am going to

provide you his identity at this point. his name is stephen paddock. last name spelled p-a-d-d-o-c-k. date of birth of 4-9-1953. as far as his history and background we haven't completed that part of the investigation yet. but we locate d now we're bringing in all the resources of the fbi to assist us in this investigation. in particular, vekt witness advocates and csi folks to help us process the scene and ensure we're getting all the evidence that we can possibly obtain. furthermore, i want to provide you the phone number that i said i would provide in the first briefing. that number for family and friends, to get an update on loved ones is 1-866-535-5654.

one more time, 1-866-535-5654. obviously, this is a tragic incident and one we've never experienced in this valley. so what we're going to try to do is the best we can to get our first responders back on their feet and responding and conducting a proper investigation and ensure that we have the safety of this community at heart. my condolences go out to the loved ones that lost their lives and their families. and we will do the best we can to make it as easy as possible for you to get information as we know it. i think it's important for you to see the fbi, county fire behind me. it shows we have full support of all the government entities to solve this situation as soon as

possible. >> do you have any sense of motive? >> no, not yet. >> how many law enforcement officers lost their lives? >> i don't know yet. because there's some officers from other jurisdictions that was attending the concert. i don't have an accurate number of that yet. >> have you gotten an update on your officers that have been injured? >> one was critical but is stable. one of my officers was off duty, attending the concert, and lost his life. >> can you give any more details about the firearms that were found in the room? >> no. i don't have any more details on the firearms. all we know is they are rifles and that's all i know at this point. we're executing the search warrant on the room as we speak. >> sheriff, how are you doing, your guys that were -- [ inaudible ] >> we're holding up. i don't want to say that's what we're paid to do. nobody is paid to do what we're experiencing right now. in my preview of the police department, they're doing a fantastic job and we'll have to look out for their well-being

moving forward. >> you said there were numerous other firearms found in stephen paddock's room, was that in his home or in the room itself? >> in the room. in the room of the hotel. we have officers at his residen residence. we'll be executing a search warrant there also shortly. >> how does the city recover from this? [ inaudible ] >> that's a hard question to answer at this point. it's too early in the process. please give us time so we can do a good job. thank you. i would provide you an update on a regular basis at approximately a two-hour window at a time. as you can imagine -- >> all right. that is sheriff joe lombardo, staggering new information on the death toll and concert shooting in las vegas. at least 50 dead. and 200 or more injured in the vegas shooting. we know of a cop that is injured. we know of a cop that is deceased, among those dead.

let's listen again to sheriff joe lombardo. >> once they get all their personnel on the ground and more people in place, we'll be able to provide that info. >> people looking for their loved ones? >> looking for loved one. >> are families still being directed to come here? >> yes, ma'am. two locations where they have been responding. one is at the south central area command, which is in close proximity to mandalay and a bai and also here. we would preferably like them to come to police headquarters on martin luther king so they're not inundated with people responding to that area. >> the families that you see coming, what kind of emotion -- >> thank you very much. have a good night. >> the sheriff was talking about a phone number set up for family and friends of the injured and the deceased, to find out what's going on. obviously, lease vas vegas is a tourist destination. people are coming from all over, trying to figure out anything they can about people they love.

the phone number was 1-866-535-5654. that's the phone number for family and friends of victims who may need more information or trying to find out any information. also what the sheriff was able to tell us beyond the staggering number of over 50 dead, that's now beyond the pulse nightclub shooting in orlando. it's the deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history at this point. we don't know the numbers. the numbers go 50, potentially more. and 200 potentially more injured athis the point. we know the suspect is dead, 64-year-old stephen paddock. his companion, the sheriff said, is now in custody. they have located her. so that is going to be of interest. marilou danley is her name. suspect was known by local law enforcement.

has had problems with local law enforcement. we don't know much more. right now the room that he used, 32 floors up in mandalay bay, to shoot down on the concert goers, that room is being searched meti meticulously. there were multiple weapons in the room. this was a planned out attack. he planned to do as much as he could. we know from the video we've been watching and listening to that he squeezed the trigger of some sort of automatic weapon and did not let go and just shot as many bullets as he could on to the crowd. again, a staggering number of dead. 50-plus dead in las vegas and 200 potentially more injured. that death toll could rise. deadliest mass shooting in u.s. history in las vegas. we are bringing you live coverage right now. let's bring back in jim cavanaugh reerks tired atf

special agent in charge and hostage negotiator. they killed him, according to what we've heard so far. reports we've heard so far, that he did not commit suicide. jim, what can you tell us from what we've heard so much -- so far from the sheriff and what are they looking for in that room? >> well, they're trying to round up all his guns. they're trying to see what his motivation was. they're trying to get some answers that will not relieve the pain in this, mika. 50 dead and 200 swrered. it's unbelievable the carnage here. it goes from the positioning of this guy and the submachine gun. those two factors alone will cause mass deaths when you have a crowd below like that. to do it in a city like las vegas and in a concert. it's an unbelievable event. it's a sad, sad day for america to have this happen. the answers are going to be, you know, wholly inadequate, no

matter what they are. but the police and the agents will still try to dig those out to the best they can. get some answers from his companion. track the guns. track the information. >> so, what is this about? this is some kind of deep seeded revenge, hatred. somebody does has done him wrong. he wants to get back at them. whether it was targeting the concert specifically or he wanted to target just people on the ground, which in las vegas you have large pedestrian crowds moving around all the time. that remains to be seen as well. just devastating. what we discussed earlier with sam, you and gene. there's planning here. there's a little bit of funds expended. hotel room, ammunition. getting these number of guns up to the room. this is not something that he did in the spur of the moment. he wanted to do, he planned to

do, he planned to get that room. he might have specifically asked for a room overlooking the concert. all those things will come out in the investigation. that deliberateness for mass murder is a certain mind-set that we see in these shootings, planning. like the pulse nightclub. they're really into -- there's a long lead-up to it. it doesn't happen real fast. there are a lot of answers we still don't know. it's a heartbreaking event. heartbreaking. >> jim, gene robinson. so, more than 250 people shot now. what does that tell us about the amount of ammunition he brought or the tnumber of weapons or ho long this went on? >> few things, gene. when you're using a military submachine gun like this, these rounds go through one person and will go through yet another person. they're not necessarily going to

stop when they hit the first victim. also when you're shooting from an elevated position, they're going to ricochet off the tarmac. if that is hard ground -- i don't know the surface there. if there's any hard ground it can ricochet off cement or pavement. if it's soft dirt, it would just go into the dirt. i don't quite know the layout there. but a military designed submachine gun. rounds are small and they have a large cartridge. whether or not it's a 223, 762, we don't mow what it is. it will be a military style round. that's what a submachine gun is built for. it's a high develvelocity round. the wounds are devastating. they're made for war. so when you get -- that's why you saw, you know, congressman

scalise who was so injured by that rifle. he was just -- if he didn't get that immediate medical care, he probably would have been bled out there. it wasn't a wound in a fatal place on his body. but the wounds are so devastating. and i think that's what people faced in las vegas. it's a surprise ambush attack from an elevated sniper position with a machine gun. this about as bad as you can get it, short of a belt-fed machine gun with rounds that would never end. how many rounds you fire, gene, is a good question. i could only discern from the video i heard four or five magazines. and i did hear another weapon. i did hear semi automatic fire, single shots from another weapon, which was most likely the killer, firing another gun. so it could have been a semi automatic rifle. it was definitely a different weapon. if you listen to some of those

videos, you can hear it. it could also have been police responding. i'm not sure. it could have been a police responding with fire. more than likely, it was him with another weapon, shooting on semi automatic fire. he might have went through the magazines for a submachine gun. he was eating them up so fast by holding the trigger down. if he shoots 130 rounds, he does that in a matter of a couple of minutes. >> we are covering the worst mass shooting in u.s. history. shots fired from a room at the mandalay bay in las vegas down on a crowd of concert goers. we are looking at 50, at least 50 people dead and more than 200 injured. the suspect, 64-year-old stephen paddock, is dead. his companion, marilou danley, is in custody. they appear to have her in some way, according to nbc's pete williams. right now they are going through

the hotel room where multiple weapons have been found. the fbi has stepped in. csi personnel are processing the scene. and a number has been set up for family and friends who want to know about loved ones that they may not have heard from. 1-866-535-5654. ayman mohyeldin, you have a question for jim cavanaugh? >> yeah n terms of the position of where this gunman was, the fact that he's in an elevated position -- now that we're getting a scope of how big the death toll is, the injury toll, does that suggest that this individual had cased the building before and knew how to vantage point overlooking a strategic area where this crowd is going to be? it does not seem he would have randomly picked this location at this time. >> that's a great question. i would agree with you, in my estimation, he already had

scoped out that area and knew where he wanted to be and where he wanted to shoot at. he could have been totally random. the fact also tell in other wo wanting to shoot at any pedestrians from any elevated position kind of like the texas tower in the 60s. but more likely than not he had a real design on this crowd, this purpose to go up there, bring in guns. i kind of think he knew where he wanted to be at this specific time. the concert was just ending. it's almost like he was laying there in wait for the concert to -- the final song for the concert, and then he unloaded. the elevated position is so key in the military service they always want to take the high ground. you command the high ground, you can win the battle. you want the high ground. this guy had the high ground and nobody firing back. so he was in a very deadly position. >> and also given this was a

concert, i think people were probably very disoriented at first as to what they were hearing. let me turn to pete williams with more information. he's been gathering information on the suspect. also his companion. i'm seeing a report we might be hearing from the suspect's family. pete, what are you hearing? >> well, this is an indication that the police have already been talking to family members, and a family member has told our t tracy connor in new york they'll probably issue a statement through the police in another five or six hours from now, but i think the main point there is the police have already been in touch with family members of steven paddock. completely understandable as they begin to build a backwards timeline to try to figure out what was going through his mind, what they might have known. did they have any idea he was planning something like this? when did he start to acquire the

weapons? who was he in touch with? what were his travels? these are the open questions. just a short time since the shooting happened. a matter of a few hours, there's no idea yet of why he did this. no indication of foreign directed terrorism. and what is undoubtedly going to be the worse mass shooting in u.s. history. it's out of the normal, if you can use a term like that, but in the normal sort of range of people involved in these mass shootings, his age, 64, would make him something of an outlier. there are a lot of things that are unusual and a lot of work to be done. >> what have you heard so far about his companion? do they have her in custody? >> no. they're looking for her, we're told. her name is marilou danley. we believe she's 62 years old. they were living together in

mesquite, nevada in a home the police have been searching for several hours. we were told by witnesses that people saw the two of them together at the hotel, but we don't know when that was, whether it was earlier today, whether it was some days before. we just don't know the answer to that question. what her role in this, if any, is unknown. >> okay. all right. her status is unknown, even, when you think about that. pete williams stand by. jay gray is on the ground and spoke to victims, people who were there who were either traumatized or injured and saw it all. jay? >> mika, we've been pushed back by police a couple of blocks off the strip. pete was just talking about las vegas police now saying online that they are confident that they've located the female person of interest here. they say they've also located vehicles that are a part of the investigation. so just some breaking news on that. take a look at the scene here

behind me. you can see the strip still locked down, and there are still people pouring through the city who are at this concert. i did talk to a young man who just came through. no shirt. he said he took that shirt off to attend to one of the wounded on the ground. another couple that came through earlier, blood all over their clothes saying they too were trying to help those who had been shot. as you can imagine, the people that moved through this area still very stunned. many of them can't get back to hotel rooms because the area is on lockdown. this is still a developing situation within the last five minutes, ambulances still leaving the scene, lights and sirens on which would indicate they're transporting more victims. that's the latest. >> ya, thank you. i want to go back to pete williams. obviously, this is still developing, and right now as it stands, appears to be the worst

mass shooting event in u.s. history with more than 50 people dead and more than 200 people injured. and we're talking about a suspect who is deceased at this point, a 64-year-old male steven paddock. his companion, hard to tell, jay's language was a little different, pete, that she's been located. perhaps maybe they're closing in on her? >> well, yeah. i'm looking now at the statement from las vegas police. it says we have located the vehicles in question. that's the two that they asked for help in finding earlier today, the hyundai nissan, and we are confident we've located the female person of interest. they're describing her as a person of interest, located, i don't know what that means. whether they're talking to her, whether they know where she is. you're right, there's some ambiguity in the statement. we'll have to try to run that down. >> okay. so again, at this point very

little is known except for staggering, staggering numbers. the death toll in this concert shooting in las vegas, at least 50, possibly more dead. we know of a police officer who is attending the concert who is deceased. we know of another officer who is injured. right now the room used, 32 floors up in the mandalay bay by steven paddock that is believed to be the suspect who is deceased, he used that room to shoot down on the crowd of concert goers, and from the video that we can show you and the sound that you can hear, it was very difficult for concert goers who were listening to country music to understand the difference between what was sounds from the stage and what were sounds of bullets raining down on them until people began to die and be injured. we're talking about 250 plus people hit by a hail of gunfire that was shot down on them as they were enjoying a simple

country music concert in las vegas. a lot of reporters in the las vegas area today because of the release of o.j. simpson. so, for example, we've got reporters actually stuck in rooms in mandalay bay. the entire hotel is on lock dourn. the elevators are not working, and they are culling the entire building, i would assume, but focussed on the room where the suspect was. again, pete williams confirming reports we got from jay gray that his companion, marilou danley has been located. they're confident they've located here. sam, that's nebulous language. it could range from anything that she's in the room and deceased to she's at large in a car. >> they didn't say detained.

>> she could be, if alive, a key to a lot of answers to what happened. >> maybe i can direct this to jim here. i was struck by what pete said about the suspect. he called him an outlier. and for all the -- if you think about the shootings in the past where we have sat on this and discussed them, it's true. steven paddock is old, 64, not a young shooter. he had a companion. most of the people are loners. he targeted a concert, not a person with a professional connection. and jim, what do you take of that? this does seem to be different in those respects that the suspect does not fit your typical profile, but perhaps i have this wrong. >> no, i think you're right about those facts, and it's hard to put all shooters into one, you can see commonalities. but what gets in these guys' heads is somebody, i like to put it like this.

somebody has done them wrong. in their head, somebody has done them wrong. it could be society. it could be las vegas. it could be certain people he's seeing in front of them. it could be people of a certain race. there's some hate or revenge. he wants to wreak on these people unless there's a terror motive or connection for political reason or gain like isis or al qaeda. the sheriff said he's not seeing that. if you take that way, the political terror motive, then you get into the motives of hate, power, and revenge. this guy is going to an elevated position to take a lot of life. when we were talking earlier about the planning, think about this. this guy is going into this casino in las vegas, and he's going in there with his bag, with his guns, and his, his object is to commit mass murder.

this is not a guy who wants to rob something or shoot or even kill person. his objective is mass murder. so he goes up there, and he gets in that room, and whether he breaks the wind or cuts the window, we don't know, but he engages in mass murder. that takes a real different mind set for a human being to be able to do that. it's hard for us to grasp. >> jim stand by. if you're just joining us this morning, this is our kovshlg of a major tragedy on the las vegas strip. at least 50 dead and more than 200 wounded which would make this the deadliest mass shooting in american history. automatic gunfire hit a country music concert across from the mandalay bay and casino. [ gunfire ]

people had no idea what was happening. the shooting began at about 10:08:00 p.m. las vegas local time. the report is concert goers told them they saw muzzle flashes from the upper floors of the hotel across las vegas boulevard. here is the chaos as described by witnesses as it unfolded. >> what's going on? mand dalay bay. i see the shots coming up from mandalay bay. multiple casualties. >> repeating, be advised. it's automatic fire. fully automatic fire from an elevated position. take cover.

>> multiple medical checks. south of reno. >> when we were there, jason aldean was performing. he was 10 minutes in and we heard what we thought were fireworks. it looked like smoke from mandalay bay, and then he kept performing and then we heard it again. they cut the music and everyone said drop, and everyone dropped, and everyone got up and they said run. and everyone started stampeding and charging and knocking over grills, jumping over fences. getting out. we tried to run into mgm, and everyone ran out of there saying there was shooting. we tried to run this thing and the same thing happen and then we hid in a bush for an hour. >> clip after clip. everybody running. it was really bad. >> you said there were multiple shots fired? >> we were the furthest vip stages away from mandalay bay,

and they were reck sheaing everywhere. they were firing from somewhere high and unloading clip after clip. >> the las vegas metro police say the suspect steven paddock, 64 years old of mesquite is dead, killed by police. police are searching his house and the room he was in. we're awaiting more information about whether he was known to federal authorities. according to pete williams he was known to local law enforcement. police breached his hotel room, and here is the tense moment as heard on the police scanner. >> control 020. >> go ahead. >> suspect's door. i need people in the hallway to be aware. we need to see if he's in here or moved out somewhere else. >> copy. all units on the 32nd floor, exposed breach. everyone in the hallway needs to move back.

all units move back. >> breach, breach, breach. >> the police say they believe they have located a woman who they were searching for described as paddock's companion. she's marilou danley. she and paddock were living together reportedly. and police are asking those with vid e oeo of the event. anyone there with a video, come forward. it will help them put the pieces together. they'll take my video. police say they do not believe there are anymore shooters at large and no other places on the strip were attacked. they're advising people to call this phone number. 1-866-535-5654. obviously las vegas is a tourist destination. people come from all over the country to enjoy concerts there and casinos. the number is 1-866-535-5654.

right now we're looking at 50 plus dead in this shooting making it the worst mass shooting in u.s. history. and also over 200 people injured. just incredible numbers here as we cover this story. and so little information. a 64-year-old male shooter from a hotel room, 32 floors up. just raining bullets down on a crowd of concert goers. it's senseless. it's hard to understand, and for the people who are waiting for word on loved ones, there is a phone number for you, and also time at this point will tell. 1-8 66-535-5654. we are hearing from the white house that there will be a statement. sara sanders saying the president has been briefed on the horrific tragedy in las vegas. we are monitoring the situation closely, and offer our full support to state and local

officials. all of those affected are in our thoughts and prayers. we know the fbi has been called in and csi personnel are right now processing the scene, especially that room where the shooter had multiple weapons and apparently carried out this attack. joe fryer is a couple floors up staying at the hotel, actually, so cover the release of o.j. simpson. joe, what can you tell us? >> reporter: yeah. hey. our team is staying in the four seasons which is part of the mandalay bay tower. it takes up some of the upper floors of the tower. we're on the 38th floor. the sheriff says the shooter was on the 32nd floor below us. we've been on lockdown for about six hours since the shooting happened. we just checked with the front desk not that long ago. they say we're still under lockdown. the elevators are not functioning. we know there's a police presence in the vicinity as they continue their investigation. right now what we want to do is

i'm going to turn off the lights. we want to give you a look outside our window and get rid of the reflection. as you can see, dp yif you look, that's kit can i corner from us, where the concert was taking place. jason aldean was performing, and thousands of people were there. you can see the perspective here. we're on the 38th floor. we know the shooter was six floors below us. we don't know if he was perhaps to the left or to the right of us. but from this point of view, you get an idea of just what you can see with imagine thousands of people there listening. the stage is on the right-hand side. you actually wouldn't be able to see the singer performing because of the cover over the stage from where we are right now, but this was the viewpoint we had, and this is where the general direction of where the gunfire came from when the shots rang out after 10:00 local time here. right now it's sort of quiet here on the vegas strip. this is las vegas boulevard.

typically bustling at all times, but right now the only thing on the road are police vehicles, a few ambulances lingering and emergency response vehicles. no one from the public is being allowed into this area. they've been clearing everyone out. we've seen metro buses trying to remove people from the scene. and again, we are still in our hotel here and have been told the elevators are shutdown. so we are not able to leave here right now. at least we know it's a safe situation. the sheriff believes there was only one shooter. the shooter was confronted inside the hotel, six floors below us and was taken out by authorities and now there's an investigation taking place inside that room, the sheriff recently saying that they found numerous weapons inside of that room. so a lot of investigating to do here. and there remains a heavy police presence here at the mandalay bay tower. >> all right. thank you very much. joe fryer in the hotel. 36 floors up. now to steve patterson on the ground on the las vegas strip.

steve? >> reporter: a lot of what we're seeing from above, we saw filter out on the ground. police swarming this scene shortly after that shooting took place. speaking to victims as has been mentioned all throughout this morning, a lot of them thought that that original gunfire was some sort of fireworks or some sort of sound that was part of the show, just not recognizing the sound of constant automatic gunfire raining down. who would think that that's what it was? people looked up and confirmed that, and then you had a mass panic. people trying to leave that scene as quickly as humanly possible. a lot of people using, unfortunately, the bodies of victims as cover to avoid further fire. a lot of people ducking into buildings, ducking into bushes. some accounts of victims hiding for hours not knowing what's happening on the outside. terrified to come out. we actually have seen some of

those people in the last few moments come out. so what's happening now? about 4:00 in the morning here on the las vegas strip. the scene j still shutdown. police, obviously, have a high focus on that hotel room where the suspect was raining down terror on those people. so they've started to let some of the strip breathe a little bit. we've started to see a little more foot traffic. the police obviously want to keep a clamp on this as their investigation into what is now the worst mass shooting in american history is underway. >> thank you very much. again, we are covering what appears to be the worst national mass casually shooting in u.s. history. this happening last night in las vegas at a country music festival. the suspect is steven paddock. he is deceased. he apparently used some sort of automatic weapon to fire shots into a crowd from the 32nd floor

of mandalay bay hotel. his companion by the name of marilou danley was living with him. they lived in mesquite, nevada. she's an asian woman, 4'11". they are saying they have located her. they're also using that language, for they have located the two cars they were looking for that were attributed to the suspect and his companion. they're not saying more about the nature of how they located her, where they located her, and what her status is. but she could be such a well of information as to what happened here. what was behind this shooting? what would drive a 64-year-old man to bring multiple weapons into a hotel room and unleash a rain of gunfire? by the way, squeezing the trigger of his automatic weapon and not letting go to the point where so much carnage, so many people were killed and injured.

the number right now is over 50 dead including at least one police officer. the number of injured is such cause for concern that the death toll could rise. more than 200 people injured. the type of weapon that was used, jim telling us, causes unbelievable carnage. unbelievable damage. they are weapons of war. and, therefore, that is the reason so many people lost their lives with one man, one man pulling the trigger. we have a comment from the man who was performing that night. his concert, jason aldean tonight has been beyond horrific. i still don't want what to say but wanted everyone to know me and my crew are safe this. thoughts and prayers who everyone involved tonight. it hurts my heart this would happen to anyone who is coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night. heart broken. stop the hate.

getting small pieces of information as to how this happened and where people were taken. we have 26 people that were admitted to a local hospital at the university medical center. some officers took cover behind vehicles while others carrying assault weapons ran into the mandalay bay hotel and casino. we have sound of s.w.a.t. team members closing in on him and ultimately killing him as they stormed his room. pete williams has been following the story and bringing us the latest information on the suspect. his age, his background, where he lived. the search of his home, and also of his companion which is still unclear. they say they have located her. what else are you hearing so far? >> we don't have the answer to that question. the police chief, the sheriff, who also serves as the police chief for las vegas said he was confident that they had located her. but what that means, whether they've actually got her in their custody, whether they

think they know where she is, we just don't know the answer to that question, and we're trying to find it out now. the authorities have said that when they got into that room, they found what they describe as a cache of weapons. they had been told earlier he had several weapons and now they say there was quite a lot of fire power in that room. several weapons. lots of ammunition, but we don't have any of the key data points here yet on when did he get those weapons? when did he check into the hotel? did he ask for a certain room? was this target chosen in advance or did he get into the room and just decide that whatever window he got, he would shoot out of it? we don't know the answer to that question yet. we don't know what role, if any, this woman they were eager to find, marilou danley, played in this. that's a key question here. they're describing her as a person of interest because she

was his roommate living with him in mesquite, nevada, because we have been told by witnesses they were seen together at the hotel. so that would suggest that she was at least at the hotel at some point before the shooting. but we obviously she was not in the room when it happened or she'd be in custody because they blew the door off the room and went in and apparently shot him. she wasn't there then. when did she leave the hotel? did she have any idea what was happening? did she know he brought all these weapons with him to the hotel? did she check in with him? who booked the room? these are all the questions we'll get the answers to here in the coming hours. we don't know the answers at this point. >> do we know in terms of the timeline, he was shooting, and were they able to breach his room as he was reloading? did he stop for some time? how much time between when the shooting started and when the suspect was taken down?

does anybody know? >> i've asked that question here. i'm sure somebody knows the answer probably in the las vegas sheriff's office, but i have not heard that answer. i asked that question, and i don't know the answer. whether they actually stopped him from shooting or whether he had decided to stop himself or run out of ammunition or a weapon jammed or what. i don't know the answer. >> all right. pete, we'll let you go and get back to you. thank you for joining us once again. president trump just tweeted my warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the las vegas shooting. god bless you. this is the worst mass casualty shooting in u.s. history. pulse nightclub, i believe it was 49 dead. we're looking at more than 50 people murdered here. joining us over the phone, university medical center spokeswoman. i wonder how many victims and casualties have come your way, and how you are accommodating such large numbers.

>> good morning. so far we have received 104 patients here at university medical center in las vegas. many of those upwards of 30 patients were cared for in our level one trauma center. we're the only level one trauma center in nevada. many of them had to go straight to the or to have their life threatening injuries cared for. two patients passed away. many others drove themselves to the emergency department. our emergency department is separate from our trauma center. they were cared for there as well. upwards of 1 04 patients so far receiving care here at umc. >> so you talk about two patients that died, and you said many of the patients went right into the o.r. any way of knowing how many? >> we had upwards of eight patients who went right to the o.r.s. we are a self-contained trauma center. they are in our four walls and

would be in an o.r. within two minutes. about eight patient the went straight there. we've had some patients who have been well enough to be discharged already early this morning. >> and how is the hospital accommodating all hands on deck, i'm sure? but it must have been an incredible scene trying to bring in all these patients. >> absolutely. everybody from our trauma surgeons to our ceo was here in house. as a level one trauma center, we always have a full trauma team ready 24/7, always here to receive mass casualty incidents. they were ready. we also operate on accordion staffing. our nurses came from all areas of the hospital and from home. we were very well equipped to take care of the patients who we received. >> and i'm curious, you said eight went into the o.r.

any way of knowing how many you have in critical condition versus fair? any gauge as to how severe some of the injuries are here and how many? >> i heard we had about 12 patients in critical condition, but the numbers can fluctuate. we have the full gamut with us this evening from those who are very critical and in our icu units to those who thankfully have been able to go home already this evening. >> all right. thank you very much. hope to hear from you again, and i wish you the best of luck as your hospital tries to accommodate. this is the only level one trauma center in nevada, so you are much-needed today. thank you very much. all right. back to jim. jim, just given the numbers here of grave injuries and deaths, tell us about the potential of what kind of weapon was used

here, what kind of weapons this suspect brought into that room. >> well, rifles is the key. of course machine gun is the deadliness of it. they're military weapons designed to be used in war. they fire high velocity rounds. it causes the injury and death. it's a small round usually if it's 223. it's not even a large diameter round. it's more like a .22 bullet. it travels at such high velocity, that it has injury and death on the enemy, what it's designed for. a sub machine gun. there is an alternative rifle, a friend of mine reminded me of the bump stock which is -- it goes on a semi automatic rifle

and allows the rifle to cycle like a sub machine gun. if you've seen those fire, you say why is this legal, and it's legal because the way the law is written. and atf doesn't have a choice in that. they have to go with the way congress wrote the law. bump stock does not fit the definition. i would think it would be unusual if this killer had it. he more than likely had a sub machine gun already designed that way or a converted one. as you reported, multiple weapons. you can hear at least the sound of two weapons on the video. there's semi automatic fire at the end of the fully automatic fire. and the s.w.a.t. operators, you hear them say we're going to breach the door with an explosive charge, and we want to see if we get a reaction. the reaction they probably got was gunfire. and if they got gunfire, then they knew he was there, and then they could make their entry with

their flash bangs and engage it. and, of course, you're not going to win against the s.w.a.t. team. they're well-trained and practice. and las vegas has one of the best in the country. that's what they were doing. they were trying to breach the door to see if they got a reaction. >> you said when you were listening to -- because obviously a lot of video and sound is coming in at this event as it was unfolding. you say you heard at least two different types of weapons? >> right. if you listen to the video, you can hear the fully automatic fire. it comes in a 30-round burst. there's a delay. another 40 30-round burst delay, maybe another one, and then you can hear single shots. it sounds like a different weapon. it could be a different rifle. it could be a handgun. and there are just single shots. he could have been firing another weapon from the window as well. >> okay. and so they were not at the same time? this was a man using -- one

suspect using multiple weapons. one after the other? >> right, exactly. we always say a guy can only shoot two guns at once because he only has two hands. it sounded like automatic fire and then single shots. we can't rule out it was officers firing at him, but more likely it was him and he was firing on the kround in single shots as well. >> also his companion, they were looking for her. she apparently lived with him in mesquite, nevada, this marilou danley. what do you make of the language. they located the two cars they were looking for, and they say they have located her. >> it's going to be interesting to see if she went to the hotel with the killer. the video in the hotel casino is extensive. how did they get there? they came in a vehicle most likely. was she driving? did she take

him in there, leave him off there. was one vehicle left there? all the questions we don't know, and what does she know about the mass murder? did she know of the plan? is she an accomplice or innocent party? was she threatened? we don't have the answer. and how did he acquire all these guns? what's his criminal record? if he's a convicted felon, he can't possess those guns legally. he'd have to use an associate or even a strange to buy the guns for him. those questions need to be answered. we don't know his criminal record. he's had some contact with las vegas police, but that could be minor or drunk or even homeless on the street. we should find more out today about what is his life like in las vegas. that may answer some questions. >> it may.

it may. we wonder what triggered this. we're also going to be finding more in the hours, in the coming hours about numbers here. numbers of dead. we're looking at 50 dead, at least. but with more than 200 injured, that number could go up. we just talked to a spokeswoman for the largest trauma center in nevada, and they brought in 104 patients. two died. eight or so were in the o.r., and there were about 12 critical at last check for her. and some patients walked in and were allowed to leave as well. so some of the injuries were far less grave. the numbers on your screen right now officially make this the worst mass casualty shooting in u.s. history. and we still don't know how high those numbers will do. we have been following the story all morning, and we are covering

more reaction from victims. >> reporter: we've been speaking to eyewitnesss throughout the course of the evening. some of the initial information that we were getting word from those concert goers who were using their cell phones to document some of the initial videos that have proven to be critical as you heard there and as you and jim were talking about the sounds of that gunfire. that was actually from one of the eyewitnesss. we had a chance to track him down and spoke to him in the early hours of the morning. here's what he described to us. >> fireworks, i thought i'm a local. i thought, honestly, from the smell, it smelled like a pyrotechnic, i thought they messed up. like they were going to shoot fireworks and it was misfiring. then it stopped and went again, and then it started getting louder, and then you saw people start screaming. you see jason aldean start running off the stage.

and then you see people running and bodies on the floor, and people started running. it was hectic. >> what was going through your head at that point when you saw that body on the floor going from listening to jason aldean to seeing a body on the floor in your hometown of las vegas, a place that you likely feel safe walking every single day? >> well, it's a complete mind freak on you. you think you're safe. you're at a major country concert. it's an amazing audience. we were having a great time, and the fact that somebody can do this is mind blowing. >> some of that information, you can even see from his camera work, he was pointing his camera toward the mand lalay bay building. the fact he was describing into many eyewitnesss initially told reporters, they thought it was fireworks, part of the show, but quickly saw the way the crowds were reacting, the fact that people were being shot, that

this was not part of the show and was an attack of some sort. >> and when i was watching the video and interviewing him, i asked him why did you start shooting when all of this was going on? why did you open your phone and start taking video. he said this is the world we live in and that was my natural reaction to start videotaping what was going on. that was unbelievable to me. it really is the reality of where we're at in the incredible tragedies happening in our country and around the world. >> absolutely. and police are asking send in those videos. that will help them put this together. they already obviously have some videos right now they're working with. they also have a deceased suspect and they have located his companion which could reveal more answers as they search his home in mesquite, nevada, and his room. and they figure out where the weapons came from. clearly weapons of war that were used to kill so many people going to a country music

festival in las vegas, nevada last night. there's a phone number set up. las vegas is obviously a place where people come from all over the country to vacation and have a good time, to go to concerts, and if you are looking for someone or if you haven't heard from someone, they set up this phone number for you. 1-866-535-5654. it is still a chaotic situation. we spoke to the largest trauma center in the area, and they brought in 104 patients. they had eight that went straight into the o.r. they have 12 that were in critical. and they have dozens of patients being treated there for injuries. and we don't know if the death toll will rise, but they are saying more than 50. more than 50 are dead in this shooting, this mass casualty shooting. the largest in u.s. history. we have more updates now as

msnms msnbc's live coverage of this shooting on the las vegas strip continues. if you're just joining us, last night in nevada the deadliest mass shooting in american history took place. >> the number of injuries, i do not know yet, but we are looking at in excess of 50 individuals dead and over 200 individuals injured at this point. >> again, at least 50 dead. more than 200 wounded. it happened last night at around 10:08:00 p.m. local time. gunfire rained down onto an outdoor concert at the mandalay bay hotel and casino. [ gunfire ] >> at first people didn't know what they were hearing. was it part of the concert? were the bullets coming from

above? it was incredibly confusing. moments ago we spoke with a representative of university med car center who said more than 100 flooded into their e.r. concert goers told them they saw muzzle flashes from the top of the hotel. here is the chaos has described by witnesses as it unfolded. >> upstairs mandalay bay, halfway up. i see the shots from mandalay bays. we have multiple casualties. >> be advised, it is automatic fire, fully automatic fire from an elevated position. take cover. >> multiple gsws in the legs, femoral arteries. also south of reno. >> when we were there, jason aldean was performing.

we heard what we thought were fireworks. it looked like smoke from mandalay bay. we heard it again and they cut the music. they said everyone got. everyone got up and they said run. and everyone starting stampeding, knocking over grills, jumping over fences. we ran past tropicana. we tried to run this way. we hid in a bush for an hour. >> clip after clip after clip. bullets flying everywhere. everybody running. it was really bad. >> and you guys said that there were multiple shots fired? >> we were on the furthest vip stages away from mandalay bay, and they were reck shicochettin. they were firing from high and unloading clip after clip after clip after clip. >> the las vegas metro police say the suspect, steven paddock, 64 years old of mesquite, nevada

is dead, killed by police. police are searching his home and the room he was in on the 32nd floor where he died. according to nbc's pete williams he was known to local law enforcement but no more information than that. here's the moment as heard on the police scanner when they breached the hotel room. >> control 020. >> go ahead. >> suspect's door. i need everyone in the hallway to be aware and get back. we need to pop back and see if we get a response to see if he's there or moved somewhere else. >> explosive breach. all units move back. >> breach, breach, breach. >> wow. the police say they believe they have located a woman who they were searching for. we're not exactly sure what that means. she's described as paddock's companion. they apparently live together.

her name is marilou danley. they live together in mesquite. police are asking those with video of the event to come forward and give it to them to assist with the investigation. they'd like to put all the pieces together that they can. police say they do not believe there are anymore shooters, and that no other places on the strip were attacked. president trump's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser tells nbc news general kelly briefed the president earlier this morning. he said he spoke with the fbi director and others about the mass shooting. it's described as an extremely fast response by law enforcement, and president trump tweeted my warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible las vegas shooting. god bless you. let's bring in pete williams who has been following this story all along. pete, what can you tell us?

>> mika, the federal and local authorities are now digging aggressively into the past of steven paddock, the man they say was responsible for the horrifying event. they're looking at his past activities, and also trying to figure out what may have been the motive here. we know that he was living with this woman that they say they have located. marilou danley. but there are indications that he was married, and that he was in the process of breaking up with or divorcing from or becoming estranged from his wife. we're looking at that aspect. whether they had anything to do with this, who knows? it's so early to tell the answer to that question. a number of las vegas and other police department personnel were on the scene of this concert. some police officers were simply attending it off duty as any other concert goer. we've heard some of them may have been injured.

the las vegas police department says that two of it on duty officers were hurt during the shooting. one had minor injuries. the other was shot, and has had surgery and is now said to be in stable condition according to police department. when they breached his room, when they blew the door off his room and went inside, they found what they describe as a cache of weapons. they say that he was heavily armed. he had several weapons in there. we have no idea how much ammunition, but you can figure just counting the shots that you hear on the videos that there were hundreds and hundreds of rounds that he fired during the short time. one question that's arisen several times is he was so far away, what's the effective range of the kind of weapon that he had? because obviously it was lethal fire power he had. our sort of back of the envelope, rough calculation here is indicating to us that he was

firing at a crowd that was about 1700 feet away from where he was. so -- and the range of an assault weapon would be about 2000 feet. so it's within the range of these weapons, and that may explain some people have wondered well, how could he achieve so much being so far away. it's within the range of these types of weapons, and we don't know yet what kinds of weapons. we don't know what the caliber is. obviously the authorities know that. there's an emergency trace going onto try to figure out when and where he acquired these weapons. we've said this before. but perhaps it was earlier today. that automatic fire that you hear from those rifles, it's not legal to just go out and buy an a automatic weapon. you can buy one, but it has to be registered with the federal government, with atf.

did he acquire it legally? did he buy it from some criminal organization? did he buy and this can be done, buy a conventional rifle that can have a high capacity magazine, and then modify it so it would fire automatically? it's possible to do that. so all those are questions that i think the answers will be coming clear in the coming hours. we'll know that as well as did he choose this target in advance, and if so, why? >> and pete, what do we make of the fact that what we know so far is he was known to local law enforcement? obviously not federal law enforcement, but known locally. minor crimes? i mean, domestics? any clarity on that? >> no, not yet. that's what we were told earlier today, that he was known to local law enforcement, but known how, whether it was an arrest or

there were complaints called in about him, we don't know the answer to that question. >> and they're searching his home as we speak, and also from what the sheriff told us, that they were doing a meticulous culling through the room where all the weapons were, and, again, what it means that marilou danley has been located is still a big question. she could provide a lot of answers if she is alive. >> there's no indication she's not alive. they certainly are hoping she can provide answers here. what did she know about why he came to this hotel? did she know he had all that fire power with him? >> was she helping him? >> exactly. those are all important questions. they described her as a person of interest. clearly there's an enormous amount of investigative interest. they're hoping she can shed a lot of light on this. >> and quickly, there's some cryptic information that we might hear from the family. i'm not even sure what that

means in terms of the members of the family. >> well, the answer is that we contacted relatives of steven paddock and said what do you know. they said they would have a statement later today, that they would issue it through the police. >> okay. pete williams, thank you. if you're just joining us we're covering the worst mass casualty shooting in u.s. history. it took place on the las vegas strip at 10:08 local las vegas time more than 50 dead. more than 200 injured. about a dozen or so are in the operating room as we speak. we're going to go on the ground now on the las vegas strip. steve patterson is standing by with more there. steve? >> reporter: mika, a somber tone for people who either

experienced what happened at this concert or who' were on th strip and heard it. this scene we've been at for several hours. it appears to be opening up a little bit. traffic is being let through. we're starting to see some of the people locked out of their hotels and complexes being filtered back in. some of the people are wearing white towels. those generally signify they were at that concert scene. we've spoken to a few of the folks. there's a lot of people who are just shocked. you can tell, you can see it on their faces as they kind of wander back. it's horrible stories of survival inform survival. one woman said a few bodies landed on top of her. she used them to shield herself. we spoke to a woman with her significant other. heard the shooting, thought it was part of the show, thought it was fireworks.

realized it was shooting. had to filter through as people were stampeding away from the sound of gunfire, trying to get away as fast as possible, and then had to hide in a bush for the better part of an hour as she's listening to the sound of the shooting and then pausing and then shooting and then pausing. stories like that are, obviously, all over this area. meanwhile it is a very erie scene on the strip. although people are -- we're seeing more pedestrian foot traffic. to see the las vegas strip like this, shut down with the lights and police glowing against the neon you normally associate with las vegas, it's quite a sight to see. back to you. >> all right. steve, thank you very much. we have a tweet now from the vice president to victims, families and loved ones affected by the senseless violence in las vegas. karen and i are praying for you and offering our love. the hearts and prayers of the american people are with you.

you have our condolences and simple they'res. to the courageous first responders, thank you for your acts of bravery, and we heard them on the police scanner as they breached his room and went in there and took the suspect down after he killed more than 50 people and injured more than 200 more and made history in the worst way possible. let me just go through some of the chaos last night. this broke out at a country festival outside the mandalay bay hotel in las vegas. 50 dead, 200 injured. there was a country singer performing, jason aldean playing near the end of his concert when the gunfire began. he was seen running off stage. he said everybody in his crew is okay. witnesses saw multiple victims as they tried to flee the gunfire. u some 1700.

people hit the ground and some ran. concert goers reported seeing muzzle flashes from an upper floor of the mandalay bay hotel and casino from the concert and the sound of what they described as automatic gunfire. we heard jim describing how he just squeezed on the trigger and didn't let go, and that indicates, if possible, to indicate anything at this point, that he fairly untrained with the use of weapons. we're told multiple weapons were found in the room and he might have used two weapons at the same time. we know 104 people were brought in to the university medical center. that's the largest trauma center in the area. 104 people at one time. eight people went into the o.r. 12 people are in critical condition. two people died at the hospital

at that hospital. some officers took cover behind their vehicles while trying to figure out what was going on and help. others ran into the mandalay bay hotel and casino. they breached his room and took him down. part of the interstate was shut down. the entire mandalay bay hotel was put on lockdown. the elevator was shut down. we have a reporter there for the release of o.j. simpson and covering this shooting. several officers from the police department were at the festival. we know one off duty cop was killed. at least another was injured. there's been a phone number set up for family and friends. las vegas is a huge tourist destination and people are probably looking for information on the some 200 plus injured and more than 50 dead. here's the phone number. it is 1-866-535 -5654.

1-866-535-5654. that's a number set up for people looking for information on loved ones. also police are asking if you have any video, if you were there, and you have any video of this as it went down to please submit it to the police department as they put together the pieces of this horrific mass murder. there is a white house, of course, members of the president's team are gauging the situation. tom bosser t says john kelly briefed the president on the shooting early this morning. he spoke overnight with the fbi director and others about the mass shooting based on early information, it's described as an extremely fast response by law enforcement, and you see that in the video that's come in, the video that you can hear,

the audio you can hear on the police scanner of them breaching his room. the suspect is a 64-year-old steven paddock. he was killed in the hotel room. he is from mesquite, nevada where he apparently lived with his companion, marilou danley, but that is not his wife. apparently according to pete williams, he may have been in the process of getting divorced. there is no word on whether that has any relation to what went down last night. he's 64 years old. they say they have located marilou danley. they've located his two cars and located his companion. she may be a wealth of information as to what happened here. they also found several weapons inside the hotel room after they breached the room and killed him. it's unclear at this point what kind of weapon he used during the shooting but once again, as pointed out, the range that these weapons were able to reach

and the amount of bloodshed that these weapons were able to carry out show that these are weapons of war, possibly illegally purchased, illegal ly attained n some way. the suspect was known to local law enforcement. we don't know exactly what that means but they say from previous encounters. whether it was small time crime, domestic disputes, we don't know. he was not known to the feds. police are calling this a lone wolf attack. and they are now right now searching his home and his room where he was using to carry out the shooting, and jim, it's impossible at this point to look at any type of motive, but the question anybody would ask as they watch this right now and look at the numbers, 50 dead, 200 injured, people going to a concert, why? >> it's hard to grasp.

usually it's something inside their head, mika, that's got them to such a state that they want to wreak havoc and revenge on people. hatred of people. they carry around a grudge. they choke on an empty grudge for some reason. if it's not a politically motivated crime, if the sheriff's said they didn't see any terror indications, meaning for a political reason, political message of the theater of terror, that it becomes a personal motive, a personal act of hate, revenge, or power, and he wants to take that out on strangers who are at a concert or strangers on the street. and as you discussed earlier, he comes with guns. he comes in likely in luggage in a vehicle, arrives at this casino, checks in as so many americans we've all been to las vegas in our lives.

we've seen the strip. we know the hotels. it's just a vibrant place. a lot of people just living their lives, on vacation. it's a happy place. and this guy comes in there with his the key to thinking about the criminal mind. his object is mass murder. just think about carrying that around with you. we tend to only think about that when he's pulling the trigger. think about that as a preevent planning to mass murder. there's a lot of preevent planning. he's got to put guns in the bag. ammo in the bag. pick a target. got to go to hotel. got to decide he's going to do it. commit to it. there's a whole lot that goes into that for the killer. when he gets into this room, the windows don't open in the hotels. we've all stayed in them. they're sheer glass. have to shoot it open, break it open or cut it open. i think that will be interesting to see how he achieved that. might have just shot through the

glass and broke it. then it stood out to you, i know. and it is important i think to our viewers. he just held the trigger down. this guy just sounded to me like he put a 30 round magazine in the rifle submachine gun and held the trigger down until it was empty. >> just held it down and the magazine is empty. he changed magazines. that's when people were able to scurry around. maybe get to some safety, but there's not a lot of cover on an open field like that. and so they're running. they're trying to save friends. they've diving on top of them. it's an awful, awful scene. and it takes a few minutes for the police to get to them. they did a great job. it takes time to get there. >> something that just strikes me and i don't know what you make of it. are the two biggest mass shootings at least in modern

american history in orlando and las vegas. america's two biggest playgrounds. not the big population centers, but the places where people come, where people are from all over the country and all over the world for recreation. different kinds of recreation, but recreation. does that mean anything? >> well, some of that, i agree with you. i think the targets do play on people's mind. some of it is all politics or local. the pulse nightclub shooter lived near orlando. orlando was a major city near where he resided. it's a place to pick a target to impact the world on. he had terrorist mote motives a personal motives. this person lived in mesquite nevada. he picks las vegas. there's some regional aspect in

that. there's also i agree with you. they're picking places that are somewhat symbolic, even if it's just to them in their mind. they're going to wreak havoc on people. when we find out this motive, it's going to be so inadequate. so disappointing. not reaching up to the wounding of one person. the worthiness of anything. it's going to be the most vulgar despicable thing. going to be a horrible thing in this guy's mind. somebody did him wring or he hated people or he wasn't treated right in his life or he was mad at his wife. you're going to say, really. that's what caused you to do this? that's how it's going to come out. trying to get inside his head. that's law enforcement why we went to the psychiatrist and the psychologist and we looked at them and asked them for those answers. they helped us. they always tried to get inside their minds and tell us what they thought, but it was always a challenge because it's so dark and such a recess to get in

there. >> we have this preevent behavior that no saw the signs. we couldn't stop him before he got there. that is sort of dispointing as well. >> so little was done in the moment. no apparent sophistication. he had the ability to do this because he was able to purchase these guns. no magazine capacity limits in the state. you can check into a hotel and not be seen with the guns because you can roll them in. if not for the incredible quickness of the swat teams on scene and the heroism of the medical units there, certainly this seems to me it could have been even worse than 50 plus dead, 200 plus injured. can you talk about how easy this was from the little we have to

pull off, putting aside the preplanning. >> right. one of the overnight anchors had asked me how much ammunition can you buy in the nevada? well, how much money do you have and how big is your truck. that's how much ammunition you can buy. you can buy all you want. you can get, how much can you get into a hotel room. you can get in there with a wheeled suitcase. if he had gone up there with more ammunition, we don't know. there may still be a cash of ammunition in the room that he didn't fire because of las vegas swat. and their patrol officers who located him for swat. and the witnesses who located him for swat. which was critical. there could still be a lot of ammo there. he could have dragged them in a couple of wheeled suitcases. barricaded that door and planned to stay until he was killed. yes, it's devastating. these weapons are easy to get. even a converted machine gun is not that hard to get on a street. atf we bought those.

undercover agents bought those quite a bit. we always target them. try to get places where they were being made, machine shops, illegal selling them for profit. it was a daily trying to stop the machine guns. didn't make giant headlines when we caught a guy with three or four illegal machine guns. we always felt like this was stopping the next murder. tried to get those off the street and the police do that as well. you just don't get everyone. people can buy them when they're already converted. it can be a gun that was originally a machine gun. m-16. military rifle. it could even be a bump stock gun. another one in the firearms world. it's just possible it's that. more than likely it's just a submachine gun. >> i'm looking at tweets from local reporters in las vegas.

apparently the suspect livid lived in a retirement community in mesquite nevada, nevada. >> in talking about the different ten cals. authorities are currently searching the suspect's home. >> how important an aspect. finding the social media and searching the sites of this particular guy. >> usually critical in the investigations. the older the suspect, the less their presence on social media generally speaking. younger people just gravitated to that naturally. not saying that older people don't use it as much. there's some people maybe the age of this killer that don't use any social media. so they don't use facebook or

twitter, instagram. law enforcement doesn't find that treasure-trove of data about the person's life. so it may be, there may be some there. there may be nothing there. you have to prepare for that. there will be a compute, even if he doesn't have a social profile, social person profile. he probably has a compute and probably googling things. this is a picture of your mind. when you're google things, that's what you're thinking about at the moment. and that can be retrieved and so when you get a killer that's googling about other mass murders and sniper in the texas tower or some killer in a tow every, os wald or one in wichita, kansas years ago shooting from the top of the holiday inn. wald or one in wic, kansas years ago shooting from the top of the holiday inn. or ten pulse nightclub. they want to look for that and

see if there's any kind of long running plan to do this. get back at somebody that revengs mor revenge motive is such a powerful motive. to me it's the most discounted and powerful motive in play in so many of cases. revenge. it goes so deep. people just don't see it. they're looking for everything else. that revenge is a deep seated motive. >> jim, standby. msnbc continues to follow the unfolding story that began last night at 10:08 p.m. las vegas local time. a 64-year-old gunman opened fire on an outdoor music festival across from the mandalay bay hotel and casino. a place that is now the site of the deadliest mass shooting in american history. >> number of injuries i do not know yet. we are looking at in excess of 50 individuals did and over 200

individuals injured at this point. >> staggering numbers. 50 dead. more than the 2016 shooting at the pulse nightclub in p orlando. others fighting for their lives over 200 wounded. [ gunshots ] >> witnesses described the terror as automatic gunfire interrupted the music and then bullets rained down from above. a representative of university medical center told us moments ago that more than 100 of the wounded flooded into their er. two died on the scene at the hospital. here is more of the chaos as described by witnesses. >> first we heard fire crackers, just thought it was someone, you know, playing a joke at a con

effort. then probably just a few minutes later we heard the several several several times and people screaming, run, run, so we ran. as we were running away. it continued. did not stop. that shooter just kept doing his horrible thing. first, we crawled. we had to crawl out. then we called somewhere and then we literally ran. ran for our lives. >> he just spraying the crowd. relentless. no stopping. he had five maybe eight seconds to move from cover to cover. to try to move and get out of there. as he reloaded. saw people thank god it was a country concert. i mean, you saw a lot of x military jump into gear. i saw guys plugging bullet holes with their fingers. i saw police officers standing up as targets just trying to

direct people to tell them where to go. the amount of bravery i saw there was just words can't describe what it was like. there were ten foot walls boxing everybody in. we couldn't escape. >> the suspect was taken down on the 32nd floor of the hotel. steven paddock, 64 years old of mesquite, nevada killed by police. they are investigating his domestic situation. they don't have clarity on that. no word on whether that is in leagues at all to what happened last night. here's the moment police breached the door. any type of response from this guy. see if he's in here or moved somewhere else. >> the 32nd floor squat has

explosive breach. everyone in the hallway needs to move back. all units move back. >> breach, breach, breach. >> the police say they believe they have located a woman who they were searching for. this is his companion. the suspect's companion. her name, mary lieu. she and paddock were living together. police are asking those with video of the event to come forward and assist with the investigation. they say they do not believe there are anymore shooters out there and no other places on the strip were attacked. they're calling this a lone wolf. loan wone wolf. our team has been here over

the weekend because of o.j. simpson. we're staffing in a four seasons hotel. it's in the mandalay bay tower. takes up a few of the top floors. below us is mandalay bay. to the left is mandalay bay. we are on the 38th floor. the shooter was on the 32nd floor. somewhere six floors below us is where the gunman was firing at people in the concert. we can tell you just within the last few minutes, the hotel started contacting all of the rooms saying they're still under lockdown. stay inside your rooms. stay away from the windows they're saying. they're saying police are in control right now. they were also saying that the scene has not been cleared. a little bit before that, we could hear police units dressed in tactical gear going door to door on our floor. just checking to make sure everyone was okay to see if anyone needed any stance they were able to clear our floor and move on to another floor. we know the elevators are shutdown. no one is getting in and out of

this hotel at least for now. we don't know how long it's going to last. what we want to do is kind of shutdown the lights for a second. going to give you a chance to look outside the window. we want to get rid of the glare. get the best shot possible. this right here just across the street kitty corner from where we were. that's the concert scene. where the outdoor festival was taking place. right hand part of your screen is where jason aldean was performing on stage. basically everything in the middle was filled with people during this concert. thousands of people were there taking in the night and enjoying it. it gives you a little bit of perspective. we're on the 38th floor. the gunman was somewhere below us. 32nd floor. six floors below us. don't know if he was directly below us or a little to the left or right. we're on the part closest to the concert. so we believe that he was in this general vicinity. just below us at this time right now you can see the scene sl

basically closed off. debris at the scene here. completely surrounded by police officers. flashing lights. first responders. las vegas boulevard right here. typically bustling at all times no matter the day or time. the only activity here comes from police we saw a lot of ambulances during the heart of the situation coming in to try to take people to the hospital. we know police squad cars were coming in and taking people to the hospital. everyone trying to help each other out. that's what the scene looks like from here. still remain under lockdown on the 38th floor hat the mandalay bay tower. >> joe friar, thank you very much. joining us now. nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker. >> reaction pouring in this morning from not only the president, but other top officials. let me read you what the

president tweeted. he has been briefed. briefed by his chief of staff, general john kelly. tweeted my warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible las vegas shooting. god bless you. number of tweets coming out from the vice president as well as the administration continues to monitor the situation. he says to the victims families and loved ones affected by the senseless violence in las vegas. praying for you and offering love. the hearts and prayers of the american people are with you. you have our condolences and sympathies to the courageous first responders. thank you for yor your acts of bravery. the president's homeland security officer has been up overnight working on the situation monitoring the situation. making sure the president is staying up-to-date. and he says the response has been extremely fast by the federal government. obviously, the white house will continue to monitor this throughout the day.

i can tell you that top officials here are meeting right now. it's their daily meeting, but undoubtedly this has become the key focus. no word yet on whether we'll hear from the president. we know he has a meeting a little later on this morning with governors to talk about deregulation. he's also meeting with the prime minster of thailand and some members of congress later on this evening. i would be surprised if we didn't hear from him. obviously this is administration that has been focused on hurricane response now that will likely shift to this crisis, this mass shooting unfolding in las vegas. >> thank you very much. joining us now over the phone, spokeswoman for the university medical center. only level one trauma center in nevada. no worries. can you hear me? yes, good morning. i can hear you. >> the last time we talked you talked about 104 patients coming into the, er one way or another

have those numbers changed? have we had any change in conditi condition. the good news of course in all of this. quite the evening. we have a separate trauma center from the emergency center department. many folks drove themselves to the emergency department. those who came in to our trauma center of those you said eight needed to have surgery as soon as they came to our doors. they went straight to o sglrr. >> can you describe the injuries especially those who went straight to the er. describe the injuries. what are you seeing most in these patients. >> mostly gunshot wounds and people hurt as they were trying to get out of that area, but

because we're a trauma center, we get the highest acuity patients and those were definitely gunshot wounds. >> mostly gunshot wounds. we're looking at a situation where people were running and there was chaos and could have been mass tramplingtramplings. we're just trying to put the pieces together in terms of the type of weapon that was used and the gravity, the severity of the injuries. you said that two patients died on the scene. has that number changed and when did that happen. >> so far we have now had four patients who is have passed away. i cannot confirm those who passed away a lot the scene. four of the 104 patients we received unfortunately passed away. >> can you describe the scene in the trauma center? must have been chaotic. >> well thankfully our staff is

trained for mass causality incidents. our trauma surgeons are the best of the best. our trauma nurses are incredible and they deal with trauma on the daily and nightly basis. so this isn't anything that we're not used to except the sheer number of patients that had to come in and be treated. >> how many patients at this hour do you have in critical condition or in the or? >> about 12 patients in critical condition, and, i believe, we still have a few in the operating room. >> spokeswoman for the university medical center. thank you so much. we hope to check in with you soon. thank you for everyone r everythithat you all do there. >> senior law enforcement analyst. commissioner, i guess i would like to start with what you gleaned from what you have seen so far, not making any leaps here, but from the audio that is

heard of the gunfire, from the range of the weapons, the ammunition able to cause so much carnage, what is your gut in the terms of the type of weapons used here and what went down? one man more than 50 dead.

more than 200 injured. these numbers are expected to change over time. one man able to create such carnage. n history. the worst mass shooting in history. we're still trying to put together the pieces as to why. the suspect is a 64-year-old male. lived in a senior center in mesquite nevada. >> there are multiple investigations. this will be the jurisdiction of the los angeles sheriff's department with close collaboration and assistance from all the federal agencies as you might expect. vast scanning if you will of social media now to see if this individual was on social media. did he do postings. he does not appear to be

somebody was well known in the sense he's known to law enforcement. he wasn't on the radar. they will try to very quickly determine what was the motivation, were there signals that were perhaps missed in terms of threats et cetera. why this man did this at this time. extraordinary job by all accounts listening to the witnesses, but just thousand quickly they were able to locate the shooter. get in there and neutralize him. phenomenal at the speed they were able to act. >> locate him 32 floors up. to locate the room. to locate where all the bullets were coming from and to get in there and get it done is amazing. we actually have audio from the police scanner. i would love for you to react and tell me what you're hearing. take a listen.

# fully automatic fire from an elevated position. take cover. multiple gsws in the chest. send aid south of reno. >> 020 go ahead. >> set on the suspect's door. i need for everybody in that hallway to be aware of it and get back. we need to pound and see if we get any type of response from this guy. see if he's in here or moved out somewhere else. >> got the 32nd floor. squat has breach. everyone the hallway needs to move back. everyone move back. >> breach, breach, breach. >> commissioner, with your experience, what did you hear happening there. >> going back to earlier

comment. extraordinary action on the part of the sheriff's department. they have a full-time swat unit which would account for speed and highly trained well equipped unit getting to the scene. being directed so the nanda lay and locating. mandalay and locating. misunderstand lay. the calmness, the lead person in that team. radioing, everybody back off. we're going to enter the room. calm. a team of officers, stream of about eight of them. getting ready to go in and confront an individual with automatic weapon who is has just killed dozens upon dozens of people. calm, professional, deliberate. they set off the explosion to breach the door and probably through a flash bang grenade which would give off a lot of

light and noise to distract the shooter. moved in at great risk to their own lives and took him out. >> going into that room, not knowing if there's just one person in there, not going exactly what kind of ammunition he might have had in there to detonate. going in there not knowing at all what they would be confronting. >> no, no idea what they would be confronting. i have seen reports they might have pinpointed are room through the hotel's smoke detectives. as you know, the hotels in las vegas, cameras everywhere. and, of course, smoke detectives everywhe everywhere. may be wired to a central system to say lough that kind of detection. seen those kinds of reports. quick question to bill. what sort of preparation would there have to have been before the shooter went and how does -- how do you go about figuring how we detect that sort of thing, gather all the guns and ammunition. how do we get our arms around

the sort of thing before this happens? >> the point you're making is that the reality is there's no short angle age of ways that ca can be committed. policing has focused in the last several years particularly dealing with terrorism and mass shooting incidents on the re relying of gathering of intelligence. this individual for example, they will be scanning social media in an exhaustive way, did they miss something. was he putting out information that should have been picked up upon by friends, neighbors, the police themselves. there's no way you can prevent something like this from occurring. there's just so many opportunities to do something like this. what you try to do is through your intelligence gathering to try to prevent whenever you can quite obviously something happened here no early signs or if they were, they were missed. >> and as we await word from

authorities who are scouring his home right now, in miskeet nevada. >> there's a lot we'll be learning in the hours to come. apparently lived with the suspect. not married to him. reports he was in the process of getting divorced. what would cause one man, and, again, it is really difficult to grasp the magnitude of these number ofs. one man to be able to murder more than 50 people in cold blood and injure more than 200. that death toll could rise and rise in a big way. set up a phone number for people who want information on loved ones. they may not be able to reach.

1 1866535-. planning the idea. getting a room that would be facing the venue if that was to be his target. the weaponry quite obviously was capable of traversing the distance of 300 yards. almost 1,000 feet. that would indicate military style weapon.

it also indicate es that ts tha officers on the ground, at the venue, armed with usually nine millimeter would have been like everybody in the crowd, despite being armed, totally defenseless against an individual in their range. even then shooting back the potential risk to other people, innocent people in the hotel. extraordinary difficult for the circumstances. it will be fascinating as this goes forward to understand the motivation, planning that went into this. >> one of the initial briefings we heard from the clark county sheriff there suggested and ruled out terrorism. that was relatively close to the window of when the attack happened. how do you think they were able to glean that piece of information. rule on any connection to foreign terrorism. perhaps not a sign at that level. >> compliments to the sheriff trying to put out information as

soon as possible to narrow the framework of concern, terrorist act as we think of terrorism now. islamic terrorism, but information fairly quickly. i think you'll find that i know the sheriff quite well. i was with him two weeks ago in las vegas. you'll find he will try to punch out information as fast as we can to try to get the public's ar arms. don't have a sense of that yet. unless possibly maybe social media postings they became aware of as this was unfolding. >> we know the fbi was assisting. may have run his name through databases. >> correct. this would be again lead agency would be the sheriff's department. significantly assisted collaborative assistance by the fbi. atf. any law enforcement agent that would be able to assist in this. also, the evolution of the shootings as they're occurring

unfortunately with the frequency they're occurring similar to what we've done in new york city in recent years. fire department and emergency services personnel. ambulan ambulances, a lot with bulletproof vest on. helmets. training personnel to go in closely with the police and deal with injured. volunteers. capability now had the personal trainings. not just the police, but the emergency service personnel also. >> commissioner, standby. we want to go to pete williams. following the story all night really. what do we know so far about the

suspect and companion. >> eric: >> we know who the suspect is. it was confirmed by the sheriff's office. 64-year-old steven paddock of mesquite, nevada. we know he was living there with this woman, mary lieu danly. she's 62 years old.

we don't know how they found her. we believe that the search of his home it's probably now just beginning. authorities in cases have to get a search warrant to enter. you know, it was the middle of the night when the shooting happened out in las vegas. take a while to get a magistrate to see it. write up the search warrant affidavit. get a magistrate to sign off on it. that is simply a process that has to be done. a situation like this, you want to make sure you do everything very carefully. i think that search is now just getting underway of his home in mesquite, nevada. in terms of the weapons, we don't know what the caliber was or type other than they were a lot of them. several law enforcement people have said he had one person said

multiple weapons. another said a cakas kascacshshs hope to get answers when they search his house. going through electronics now. e-mail records, phone records. looking at where he was on the way to las vegas. where did he stop. who did he visit. looking at work history. looking at personal history. all of those are pieces of the puzzle that will be assembled at some point. have yet to develop any kind of clear picture.

according to the local reporter, lived in a retirement community. going to hold off on naming at this point. what a scene that must be as they're going through his home there. >> let's bring in nbc tom costello, new information as well. >> just a couple of did bits here that are interesting. first, we know the suspect, steven paddock had a pilot's license and owned two planes. >> he also had -- we simply don't know. mika, we should make the point

we've seen the internet is replete with reports of what his motivations may have been with alleged photographs of him. we at nbc news don't report rumors. we report what we can verify and known to be true. we continue to work all of our sources, but there's a difference between fake news and real news. we work it as a real news story and work legitimate sources and try to make sure it's nailed down before we confirm anything. we talked about mass shootings in the past. this is of course the worst mass causality shooting event in history. replaces the pulse nightclub shooting last year. 49 people were killed. before that it was vermoirginia tech. the death claim or the death total, we should say, is

expected to rise throughout the day. one other point i would make, according to the pertexperts, a classic definition of what a soft target is. shopping mall to cafeteria to a theater. it's anywhere you can take easy aim at large numbers of people and the thing about las vegas was these people were kind of hemmed in watching the concert. there were walls around them. couldn't easily leave. there were very few points or entry or egress. the shooter on the 32nd floor had a wide view, if you will, of his shooting target, this group of looked to be mostly 20 and 30 somethings that had gathered for the country music festival. route 91 harvest festival on the vegas strip. dodging and ducking for cover. people on stage had cover. able to get out on the line of fire. people on the ground just

enjoying the day or evening. >> tom costello in the past your. we spoke to a spokeswoman from the hospital. 104 patients that streamed into their er and trauma center. at one point had eight patients in the or at the same time. 12 patients in critical condition. they know four patients died in some way, shape, or form at the hospital. or upon arrival at the hospital. these numbers more than 50 dead, more than 200 injured. this is already the worst mass causality shooting in american history. these numbers could go up. i don't think we are close to have accuracy on these numbers. >> that's absolutely right. 200 injured. i mean, that stat alone is staggering. so the experts say that

certainly sounded to them, listening to the gunfire, like this was 223, military caliber type of weapon. submachine gun or machine gun. some speculation it may have been on a tripod or by pod, just bayed on how the rounds were firing off. bip bipod. >> the question is how did he gain access to this weapon. at the age of 64, he would be double the age of the typical mass shooting suspect in america. so one would think, not probably not a recent iraq or afghanistan war vet. where did he get access to this kind of a weapon. where did he gain his training. how did he become knowledgeable

about how use the weapon. just far, far too many questions right now than there are answers. >> there's no profile emerging for sure. it seems extremely random. reaction is pouring in as america absorbs the deadliest mass shooting in its history. took place last night in las vegas at outdoor country music festival. heavily armed gunman perched himself on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay and casino and fired down on the crowd below. >> made life or death decisions. drop, crawl, run. where to go as the gunman reloaded and emptied weapon over and over. local emergency room was quickly swamped as the injured poured in

as representative of the unit medical center told us just moments ago. >> so far unfortunately we have now had four patients who have passed away. i cannot confirm those who passed away at the scene, but umc, four of the 104 patients that we received unfortunately passed away. >> and even before that, sheriff joseph revealed the staggering numbers. >> now the number of injuries, i do not know yet. we are looking at in excess of 50 individuals dead and over 200 individuals injured at this point. >> witnesses describe the confusion after automatic gunfire stopped what was otherwise an ordinary night. the bullets began coming in from every direction. >> he was just spraying the crowd. it was relentless. there was no stopping. five to eight seconds to move from cover to cover to try to

move and get out of there as he reloaded. i saw people, thank god it was a country concert. i mean you saw a lot of ex-military just jump in gear. saw guys plugging bullet holes with fingers. i saw police officers while everyone else was crouching, police officers standing up as targets you know just trying to direct people and tell them where to go. the amount of bravery i saw there, words can't describe what it was like. ten foot walls boxing everybody in. we couldn't escape. >> first we heard fire crackers. just thought it was someone you know, playing a joke at a concert. and then just probably just a few minutes later, we heard the several several times and people screaming, run. run, so we ran. and then as we were running away, it continued. it did not stop.

he just kept doing his horrible thing. first we crawled. had to crawl out. then we crawled somewhere and literally ran. ran for our lives. sgl . >> police moved in with seemingly incredible speed to confront the suspect. 64-year-old steven paddock of mess sweep nevada killed by police. the moment law enforcement breached the door and confronted him. >> 0-20 go ahead. >> set on the suspect's door. i need for everybody in the hallway to be aware of it and get back. we need to pound this and see if we get any type of response from this guy. see if he's in here or moved somewhere else. >> got the audience on the 32 floor. everyone need to move back. all units move back. >> breach. breach. breach. >> the police are confident they have located a woman who they say they were searching for. described as paddock's

companion. marilou danley. she and paddock were living together. investigating his domestic situation. police are also asking those of video of the event to come forward to assist with the investigation. the police say they do not believe there are anymore shotters and that no other places on the strip were attacked. oters and that no oth places on the strip were attacked. also advising people searching for loved ones to call this phone number. a lot of people ended up in the hospital. 104 at one trauma center. we got the numbers from the sheriff 12 people in the or.

they had dozens of people in critical condition and some people who were discharged from the hospital as well. so more than 50 dead. more than 200 injured. an entire city reeling from the worst mass causality shooting in american history. jim still with us. jim we're focused in on the suspect. we know he lived in what appeared to be semi senior community in mesquite, nevada that he had a live in companion. that they have located. this doesn't fit not that we want to draw any conclusions immediately, but there's usually some sort of profile that emerges. does this match anything you've ever seen. >> well, there are profiles of mass killers and sometimes they come up with reasonable looks, but everybody is a little different. you know, this guy is 64 years

old. one thing when you get around sometimes in a casino town, people lose money in casinos. sometimes they seek revenge for that. it will be interesting to see if there's any play here on the killers relationship to any of the casinole at mandalay bay. in his mind, at mandalay bay. in his mind, he might have been seeking revenge for all of vegas because he lost money. you can't tell quite how people think. it is interesting. doesn't seem like he has a deep criminal background. reporting he's a pilot, he's a hunter. lives in a retirement community. maybe the manager. may have some arrests or even convictions, but he doesn't sound like he's a career criminal that's operating in the criminal underworld all the time. >> tom costello still with us and we're getting update from the las vegas police department.

and estimated 406 people transported to the hospital. they're saying the number 50 for the deceased. they're not going further than that. this other piece of information, tom, that the suspect steven craig paddock, white male from mesquite nevada opened fire on a crowd of more than 22,000 concert goers from his hotel room. , nevada opened fire on a crowd of more than 22,000 concert goers from his hotel room. he had access to a crowd of 22,000 people. some of the victims were across the street attending the route 91 harvest concert we've been covering when the bullets ran out. the clark county fire department estimating over 400 people were transported to the hospital. among the dead we do have a las vegas police officer who was attending a concert offduty at the time. his name is being withheld. also two on duty officers were

injured. one who is updated recently from critical to stable condition. the other sustained nonlife threatening wounds. obviously this is still an active investigation, but my god, tom costello, this guy got up 32 floors and had his gun going around in circles at over 22,000 people, concert goers. >> just takes your breath away. >> it does. >> it is obscene and repulsive in the extreme. it's one of those stories where i always kind of cringe when i hear something say it was, you know, somebody suggest it was a tragedy. yes, it's a tragedy. it's mass murder is what it is. it's mass murder on the scale and size you would see in a war zone. to have 400 plus people injured and 50 dead. now imagine the incredible

stress that the las vegas police, las vegas fire rescue, las vegas hospitals have been under to deal with that kind of mass causality incident. anybody who has been in a mass causality situation or has covered the preparations for mass causality knows they generally don't plan for that many. 400 is more than if a plane went down. you're talking about essentially two plane fulls of people going down. 737s for example. this is really unprecedented in american history. well, you would have to go back to 9/11 i would suspect. the scale of measurement of people they're dealing with who have significant injuries, wounds, what have you and then of course to have 50 people killed in a mass causality shooting incident is really just extreme and outrageous. the only other point i can add is internet is filled, reports

of people talking about the heroism of the police. the police who had only a handgun. the initial officers on the scene had handguns and were seen rushing towards the source of the shooter. wherever that was coming from. backup came and they had longer gun weapons and then swat arrived. the heroism of the police officers who tried to immediately get to the shooter and put him down to stop it is being praised by just about everybody who was there on the ground and then of course calling in for fire rescue and the paramedics who responded and they had to respond to something they never anticipated they would ever seen on the las vegas strip. >> the local trauma center dealing with mass casualties. 104 came into the only trauma center in nevada. 104 patients. the las vegas metropolitan police department is doing its best to get information out

there, especially when it comes to identifying the injured and deceased. and reunifying families. they've set up a family center at 400 south martin luther king boulevard building b. identification process of all the injured and deceased will take time. authorities are asking the public for patience. they're also asking for anybody who has video of this as it went down from any angle to please, please submit their videos to the las vegas metropolitan police department. they've set up a phone number. if you are waiting to hear from somebody who might have been at the concert. they are firm on their number dead and people transported to area hospitals.

that's a large number of people wounded. larger than we had previously been reporting. either arriving deceased or dying on the operating table. and they doe have at least a dozen people in critical condition at the local trauma center. that's one hospital reporting that. so again, this suspect who is deceased opened fire from the 32nd floor of mandalay bay hotel on a crowd of more than 22,000 concert goers. now, the range from the 32nd floor is about 1700 feet. he was 32 floors up. which can only lead one to believe he was using automatic weapons. weapons of war. and tom costello, we're told by authorities they found a cache of weapons in his room. this was planned. he was planning on carnage.

on creating carnage in las vegas. >> >> i'm sorry, someone was talking to me mika. a couple of notes and i'll tell you why i'm distracted. somebody at nbc news just gotten a brief interview it would appear with the brother of the suspect who describes his brother as saying he was just a guy. he lives in mesquite. went to the hotels. gambled. went to shows. he said when you find out what happened, call me. so taking his family by surprise. and also gabby give ford. the former congress woman from arizona who suffered a horrific head injuries shot a few years ago tweets out heart broken by the scene of our nation waking up to this this morning. no person should endure the horror las vegas experienced last night. just a matter of minutes, one man killed at least 50 people. another 200 injured.

grave tragedy for the country. heart is with the victims and law enforcement who risked lives to save others. it strikes me, you and i have unfortunately done this many times. haven't we. we've had this same conversation in some fashion. of a mass causality situation. and tweets and comments deflecting the horror of the nation. each time we report of a worse mass causality that is yet again grabbing the nation's headlines. >> this is it. tom, thank you, standby. joining us is danny. a republican running for u.s. senate in nevada. reaction to what happened last night. >> it's horrendous. it caught us by surprise. i was sleeping when it went on and my wife woke me up and my son was hysterical. this was the worst fear of anybody who has lived in las vegas.

we've heard stories that more so international terrorism act. would happen here. we were always very scared about this. my mother on the city council gets briefed repeatedly about these type of possibilities. looks like this was just a lone wolf from mesquite and not an international terrorist act, but boy it was horrendous. worst thing that could happen to the city. >> we've heard about the victim's transported to university medical center. do you know what other hospitals they might have gone to? i think there's a sunrise hospital there. do you know anything else about the situation, those other hospitals. >> there's a hospital right next to umc which is valley hospital. they may have went there. as you mentioned the only trauma center is at umc. sunrise hospital is close by too. it's not too far from several different hospitals. with that many casualties. i'm sure they're spread out in several different places.

>> thank you very much for joining us. we'll be watching this as i'm sure you and your family will as well. we're getting information from the police department. put out a statement. also a phone number for people looking for loved ones, 866-535-5654. they have a family reunification center at police head quarter skms warning people the identification process of all the injured and the deceased will take time. asking the public for patience and videos if they were there to police share the videos with police. also, anyone wishing to help in light of what happened is asked to donate blood for the vird victims of the strip shooting. i'm going to give the address.

601 whitney ranch drive. those who want to donate blood can call and go to united blood services is. it will be hosting a bloofd drive as well today. to help the victims because there are so many right now being dealt with at the hospital. >> the brother of the suspect contacted by nbc news said the suspect, steven paddock was, quote, just a guy. he lived in mesquite. went to shows. that he said this really caught him and the family completely by surprise. so that is something of note. we don't know how regularly his brother was in contact with mr. paddock, but clearly that family was caught off guard and caught by surprise by what has happened here. you know, we've also done a lot of talking about the fact this

is the example of a soft target. right. everything, the truth is everything in america is a soft target. whether you are at a baseball game or you're at an outdoor concert or shopping mall and shopping mall, the question always becomes, is it possible to safeguard soft targets? we don't live in an armed camp as we hear so many police executives say in response to these types of shooting events whether it's brothels or the pulse or san bernardino or for that matter sandy hook. we don't as a society want to live in an armed camp so actually protecting from -- yourself from one of these events can be very difficult. that's why they always say, if you see something, say something. >> yeah. tom, too, your information on the suspect, joining us now, we have the reporter who broke that news. nbc news investigations reporter tracy conor who spoke with the suspect's brother that tom mentioned. tracy, what can you tell us?

>> reporter: i just spoke with the brother a few moments ago and, you know, they're completely shocked. he said there were no warning sig signs. he used words like mars just fell to earth for us. when i asked details about who paddock was? what did he do? he went to the hotels, he gambled, he went to shows. he said he was basically retired, had had a series of jobs but he wouldn't get into details about it. >> nothing. no warning. no way of knowing there could have been any type of problem with this gentleman? >> he said there was nothing -- they were sitting there racking their brains trying to think of was there any warning or anything? he said, there was just a guy. they were notified when they started getting phone calls from the las vegas pd when they took

the wallet from the suspect and looked inside. >> tracy, by any chance did they say anything about his domestic situation? >> reporter: they did say that he had a girlfriend. the brother said to me when they got the information about what had happened he said, we were just hoping they didn't shoot his girlfriend. they don't think she was involved. he said, she's just a girl. >> all right. tracy, thank you. we're going to go now into the news conference which is starting right now. here's the sheriff. >> into the newsroom, at least 406 people now injured we believe. sent to local hospitals 506789 killed including an off duty metro officer, another on duty officer sustaining nonlife threatening wounds. he was in critical condition earlier. now he's been upgraded to stable condition. he was hit by gunfire. >> you're listening to the local coverage in las vegas as they get prepared to hear from the sheriff once again who is going

to being having a news conference updating the situation. the las vegas metropolitan police department has released their latest information which you can see the numbers there on the screen. 50 dead but over 400 have been taken to the hospital. the number of injured has doubled. now you see scenes from last night at just after 10:00 local time in las vegas when the deceased gunman at that point opened fire from the 32nd floor of mandalay bay from his hotel room there. he apparently was armed with multiple weapons. he squeezed the trigger and didn't let go. some sort of assault weapon and was able to wreak havoc over a crowd of 22,000 people. here's the sheriff. let's listen in. >> just a matter of recall. at 10:00 p.m. last night we

started receiving calls of an active shooter at route 91 harvest festival located adjacent to the mandalay bay resort. we were receiving information that there was an active shooter firing rounds from the 32nd floor, that individuals that were attending the festival, the number is estimated to be 22,000 were being struck by those rounds. currently the clark county fire department is estimating the injuries to be well over 400, and the deaths associated with this event to be over 50. i can't give you an exact number yet because we're still investigating some of the areas involving the event where the concert was taking place, and we're still exiting individuals that were hidden. it's just a matter of a process. so it's going to take quite a while for us to completely get through the evacuation phase and eventually we will have an assessment on the injuries

associated with that. now our suspect was identified as stephen craig paddock, 64 years old, a white male from mesquite, nevada. we have no investigative information or background associated with this individual that is derogatory. the only thing we can tell is he received a citation several years ago, and that citation was handled as a matter of normal practice in the court system. some important things that i need to get out. the family reunification still is taking place here at the las vegas metropolitan police department headquarters so any individuals that are looking for answers for their family members or friends are welcome to come here and we will provide that information as we get it. the fbi is vital in the assistance of this investigation. as a matter of help, they are providing a 1-800 number which is 1-800 call-fbi so the number

is 1-800-225-5324. now that number is to be utilized for any and all information, especially video information or evidence that we can provide the fbi and they will be the housing of all that critical information. so if you have anybody that has knowledge through your media sources and they want to provide that information, that's the avenue to go. once they receive an individual on the other side of the line, they will walk them through the process and then we'll get them to the online version so they can download that information. additionally, the coroner's office as i have repeated before has city set up a number for individuals to call. that is 1-866-535-5654. that is for individuals who do

not have the ability to come down to the headquarters to discuss their family and friends in person. now the other critical piece associated with this and any mass casualty event is the need for blood. united blood services have their services set up currently. they are receiving patients or donors at 6930 west charleston and 601 whitney ranch in henderson. so if you have the ability to donate blood to help the cause, please do so. additionally, the laborer's union is offering their facilities, their medical facilities at 7135 west sahara for individuals that want to donate blood. as uls, umc has a pod set up for individuals to go to umc to donate blood. and that will be the gist of the updates at this time. so i'm happy to answer any questions. >> sheriff, can you talk about

what the scene was like in that room when your officers walked inside? >> we believe the individual killed himself prior to our entry. >> how many weapons was he found with? >> we are still going through the search warrant actively at this time, but it's in excess of ten rifles. >> what's the status of the [ inaudible ]. >> i'm sorry. >> the woman. >> we have located her out of the country. she was not with him when he checked in we have discovered. he was utilizing some of her identification and we have had conversation with her and we believe her at this time not to be involved. obviously that will be -- that investigation will continue. as far as his residence in mesquite, we have officers now there serving a search warrant. >> anything yielded by that search warrant? >> no. we just made entry just a matter of minutes ago so that's going to be quite some time.

we're going to clear the residence first for any possible explosives, so that will be slow and methodical and it will take us quite some time before we get the search phase. >> marylou, you said she was found out of the country. did you find any weapons on her? >> no, ma'am. i think it's important for you to notice who's standing behind me. we have chief greg cassel. i always get caught up with your family. greg cassel has been integral in the saving of lives. they paired up with our officers at the scene and i think their actions and heroic acts were instrumental in saving several hundred lives associated with this event. then you have our attorney general adam laxalt, he's brought forth his office to help with any associated prosecutions and you have aaron roush of the

fbi. the fbi has been standing next to us from the very first minute and they are providing all the resources available of the federal government to help us in this endeavor. then you have cart county commission chairman steve sicilack. he has been instrumental in giving us resources to the first responders as far as refreshment and food and support of the entire county commission. i have been on the phone the entire night with the mayor, carolyn goodman, and she responded to umc to check on the patients and she is in the process of visiting other hospitals and showing the support of the city. then obviously we have our congressman rubin cuin. he is also in town to show us his support. any other questions of the members standing before you. yes, ma'am? >> i know at one point you said this is not terror related. some people do argue this is domestic terrorism. how do you differentiate it. >> we have to