carjack a car. so you can't discount the fact that it was a beebee gun or a paint ball gun. i totally agree, it's likely a mad dog, loner, loser, coward. >> jim calvanaugh. my thanks to all our reporters around new york city and our analysts. our break news coverage on this story continues now on "hardball" with chris matthews. eight people are confirmed dead after a man intentionally drove a truck on to a bike path

in lower manhattan. according to wnbc, the suspect yelled allah akbar before he was shot by police. nbc news has now identified the suspect as sayfullo saipov. a video posted to snapchat purports to show the suspect after he exited the vehicle. however that individual has not been confirmed as saipov. within minutes the act was determined to be an act of terror. >> let me be clear, based on the information we have at this moment, this was an act of terror. and a particularly cowardly act of terror, aimed at innocent

civilians, aimed at people going about their lives having no idea what was about to hit them. >> at 3:05 p.m., a male driving a rented pick-up truck began driving southbound striking a number of pedestrians and bicyclist us on the route. at chamber street, the pickup struck a school bus. the driver of the truck exited the vehicle, brandishing two handguns, a uniformed police officer confronted the suspect and shot him in the abdomen. the subject was wounded and transferred to a local hospital. a paint ball gun and a pellet gun was confiscated at the scene. >> president trump tweeteded in nyc, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person.

he later tweeted, we must not allow isis to enter our country. tom winters, an investigative reporter with nbc news, and jeffrey ringle is a special agent from the fbi new york field office. >> we don't know at this time whether this individual was enabled, was inspired or directed, still don't know and that will be part of the investigation going forward. in any event, he conducted a successful terrorist attack, took eight lives and injured many others. and within a few hundred yards of the world trade center event of 2001. the most significant terrorist attack in new york since 2001. >> what do we make of the fact that it was right near the world trade center? was there some statement this

guy's making, this terrorist? >> right now we don't know, chris, there's been nothing that suggested that his eventual target was the world trade center. it didn't appear that he had it planned and it didn't appear that he knew what he was going to do once it ended. i know that area quite well, where he crashed that truck is kind of a natural break point in that pedestrian and bike pathway. right now it's just too early to say whether or not one world trade was his veventual target. >> why did he bring out these weapons? did he want to be shotsome. >> one of the things that could have been the case is that it may have been difficult to get a gun period, the second thing may have been yes maybe he wanted to commit suicide and that's

something police will obviously be looking at. >> let's talk about the potential here, it looks like an act of terror, this guy comes from a world that is angry with us, but what do we know about the international implications of somebody behind him, somebody listened to him on social media? how do we connect this to a larger threat? >> the investigation now is only four hours old. that's what the investigation is going to show. we know that he first came into the country via florida so the jttf, the nypd are all going to be scouring the database, they're going to be looking at any travel, phone connectivity, they're going to look into the data bank to see who this guy's been with and maybe what mobilized him or what radicalized him? >> is he in any condition to be intergated?

>> the first report was that he was shot in the buttock, the second report was that he was shot in the stomach. >> do we know if there's any initial interrogation? stomach wounds are horrible and painful, but they don't stop you from being able to talk. >> since this is a terrorism investigation, it's quite possible that he will be interviewed without his miranda warning by the fbi and they have a high value group that talks to people when they're in that condition. >> is there an ongoing threat to public safety and they did this in boston with dzhokhar tsarnaev, so the fbi was able to go in and say no miranda warning, is there somebody out there that you know of, is there something else in the works? we need to keep that in mind. >> so you're allowed to do it if

you're facing more danger? >> when a situation like this arises, there's a clean team and a dirty team. the dirty team is going to be the intel team. they cannot use any statements that the subject may have said in a court of law, this is only for intelligence gathering pumps to determine if there's a larger network out there or a larger threat. >> when was that wall put up? >> i know we have had situations like this since 2001 when we have been dealing with terrorists all over the world. i just want to point out too, after the dirty team talks to him, a clean team that has no connectivity with the dirty team, then goes in and reads the miranda rights and only what is presented at that time is what can be used in court. >> so the triage is the threat intel? >> never used? >> never used. >> they want to have the ability

to go and talk to him without fear of what he says being used at trial so that they can turn around and say, hey, commissioner, he told us there's three other people that are in the bronx that may have something that's going on and you might want to check that out. but as we saw and i covered the boston marathon bombing trial from gavel to gavel in that courtroom, information that was presented premiranda warning we never heard anything. >> is that something that works? do people really? a situation like this, the guy's seriously wounded, maybe a death story, he may think, is he more likely to talk if you don't mirandize him? >> maybe, this might be an individual who might want to talk. he might want to brag about what he's done. but the effort here is to determine if there's more threats out there, is there a larger plot. that's what allows us to

interview without the miranda warning. >> does this look like a conspiracy or one person operating sort of desperately? >> my initial take one person operating desperately, but the investigation is going to show who may have assisted, who may have radicalized who may have motivated. so from what i see from the news, it loo. >>-new york is an international symbol of freedom and democracy, and that is what we are and we are proud of it. that also makes us a target for those people who oppose to concepts. and we have lived with this before, we have felt the pain before, we feel the pain today. but we go forward together and we go forward stronger than ever.

we're not going to let them win. >> i wonder about the hitting of the school bus, that's awful, you know there are kids on that bus, and you target it and you ram it? >> he had just gone over four miles and gone 50 miles an hour, killed eight people, injureds 13 more, ramming into a school bus is not anything that would have phased him at all, if anything that may have been a conscious decision on his part to inflict more casualties. >> people are going to remember hitting a school bus. this is so near the world trade center, they're going say there's a connection. >> when you look at it and i don't know how many time s you have said it while you were a commissioner. new york is a target, and while

other cities have faced awful terrorist attacks, new york as you just said faced the worst one in u.s. history. there's always a symbolism, any time you see inspire magazines, various jihadist magazines, you always see images of new york. it's something we see a lot. >> right now we're here at 30 rockefeller center. this is the media center, the financial capital, the shopping capital of the world, it just is. what do you know about the neighborhood? what do you think about the reaction to this? what do you have to give us? >> i know the neighborhood quite well, it's in my district, my district office is just a few blocks away, and stiverson hospital which i graduated from is across the street. this is a terrible incident obviously and our hearts go out

to the victims. i'm very grateful to the nypd police department for their swift reaction to put a stop to this and prevent further casualties. obviously we're following the investigation closely and we'll see where it leads, i don't want to speculate too much as to whether this had anything to do with the world trade center, which is nearby, but is on the other side of a major highway and a few blocks down, i don't know, but he was clearly motivated to kill as many people as possible. it's lucky he couldn't get real guns. which leads me to suspect that he wasn't dealing with other people, because a group would have probably been able to get real guns. >> what do you make of the fact, i mean the world trade center horror was most horrible because it was a bunch of people going to work in the morning, it was regular people, it wasn't a military compound or a strategic target, it was just a lot of people going to work early in the morning, all kinds of ethnic

backgrounds, this bike path seems to be the ultimate soft target, congressman, you're going after people who are totally vulnerable, they're riding bikes, they're not armed, they have no way to protect themselves, they're in the way of a speeding weapon. what do you make of the message that this perpetrator meant to deliver? >> we have had people in busses and trucks mow down people in europe and france and israel, we haven't had it in new york before, thank god, but they're trying to communicate that everybody's vulnerable. this perpetrator apparently didn't really know what he was doing, becausie ivf he had turn north instead of south, he would have had a much more populated bike path and many more victims,

so thank god he didn't know what he was doing. >> i guess we have to ask as professionals, what's the next step here, if it is an act of a desperate, we have been through this all our lives, lee harvey oswa oswalds, loners, misfits, want to go out in a blasz ze of glor although it has the terrorist overlay of somebody yelling allah akbar. >> it's the world we're living in, it's a world we'll continue to live in. with the breakup of isis in the middle east, returns people back with a bitter attitude. it is the world we live in. the good news is we learn from each of these, we get better at

it, we prevent a lot of them, some of them we're not able to. this is one of those unfortunate ones we were not able to. >> the whole background that we need for this as we go on this evening. let's bring in gadi schwartz, he's along the route of the halloween parade in lower manhattan. this is ghastly but it's real. >> reporter: absolutely and we're seeing a lot of the security upgrades. you can see the world trade center, you see how close we are to that attack earlier today, it was just a little ways away from there, and this route, basically goes down here, stretches for about a mile down here and you see this parade is still lined with people, the parade hasn't started yet, but we're talking about thousands and thousands of people on both sides of this parade. this thing is sometimes attended

by as many as 2 million people. and we have officers that all along these barricades, some more on rooftops, a lot of people say they know what happened earlier today, it was a tragic incident what happened, but there are people out here who say they don't want terrorism to win, they're going to come out here, they're going to continue to live their lives and they're going to celebrate halloween. >> it seems to be one of the things about new york, my kids have lived up there, new york has come back from 9/11 in a way that nobody would have thought. it's a safer, more optimistic new york than it was before 9/11 and people really do get out of the street, which is the best way to reduce crime. do you get that sense when you talk to people that they still have that up picture spirit?

>> reporter: that's what they said, this is new york, we're going to continue on. in fact a lot of people that we talked to, they're here with their families. so in this crowd, there are kids with their parents who have had to explain what happened. but one thing that's making people feel a little bit better, there are officers here lining this whole entire street. that stretches all the way down, we have seen officers that have come back by on horse back, and every time they do, people are saying hello, they're giving them cheers, this is one of those days you're seeing new yorkers come together. >> the weather's spectacular, it feels that new york is at its best in november, it's the very time of year that i love this city the most, it's crisp weather, it's happiness leading from halloween to thanksgiving to christmas, it's a time we really have cheer and a sense of getting home with our families and this terrorist has disrupted it but you say he ain't going to

stop anything? >> reporter: no, absolutely not and we're still seeing smiles on family's faces, we're still seeing kids that are very excited about this parade, this parade should be starting in a little bit. the weather is perfect, just a little bit chilly, but nice enough that everybody is bundled up, people are wearing some very interesting coz to ing costumes going to be a very interesting night. >> thanks for bringing us to the people out there. it. tiroday's attack fits a re- unfortunately, i know both of you quite well because this stuff happens now, malcolm, i want you, then tara, to talk about the use of the weapon have to get around, our transportation vehicles as weapons of mass, not mass, but big destruction. your thoughts? >> well, you know, people think

that this is a relatively new tactic and in fact it isn't, it's been used in israel well foe over 50 times and in the last few years we have seen this spate after attacks in nice, germany, the christmas attacks and then the one that took place in barcelona. which was very, very similar to the one that took place today. this is a devolution from isis and al qaeda terrorism, highly organized 9/11, type attacks, paris style attacks, now they can just grab a nice, get in a vehicle and go out there and commit an individual act of terrorism. >> you don't even need to get in your car to find a bike path. that's the frightening aspect of this. eight people dead, 13 people

injured, it simply requires the human soul to go that direction, and say i'm going to drive a car down a street with nobody on it, i'm going to drive over people. and have the intestinal evil to keep driving after you hit the first person. that requires some real evil. your thoughts? >> you're right, it is evil. you're seeing a physical manifestation of a cult ideology. this is not islam. none of is this islam. including the sacrificing and getting yourself killed at the end of a terrorist attack, none of that is islamic, it's anti islamic. and these people have created a belief system in which mass murder, as we saw on 9/11, and in the middle east, they kill more muslims than anybody else. murder is their act of worship.

and that's just cultism. and there's virtually no way to stop it, once it gets in the mind of one individual, once he enunciates it or communicates it electronically. >> a u.s. government source tells us at nbc news, that this is the driver's license of the suspect picked up at the scene of the crime after being shot by police. tara, i guess the question is as always motive, and i think perhaps because he said he a prayer, allah akbar, that it has something to do with his notion of religion. but the idea of his pulling out the nonlethal weapon, it fits the pattern of these people committing suicide in the act, they want to be shot. >> we don't know the particular motivation of this individual, but it duoes have the hallmark f an isis-like attack.

what we do know is that isis has been losing ground and they've been calling for these types of attacks, when you look at their propaganda and messaging, they're calling for people to carry out these low tech style attacks, that's a shift from previous terrorist tactics. and you also know that you've seen the proliferation of their messaging on online platforms. i was just on the hill today about russian interfering on these platforms, but also extremist and terrorist content. this is the trend that we have been seeing as they lose ground, as they start spreading their message online and around the globe, and they call on individuals who might have their own problems as well. but to grasp on to their ideology as well. it looks like a lot of these other cases that malcolm mentioned previously. so i wouldn't be surprised that

it was isis inspired, with no direct links back to isis, but he was expose to content that may have radicalized him in some way. too early to say, but it wouldn't surprise me given the information and officials came out with the word terrorism very early which they usually don't do if they're looking into other scenarios. >> for every great crime there must be some great criminal mind, it must be professor mo moriarty goes after mr. jones. we were just through this kennedy examination of those documents and i wonder whether when we say cowardly act by a

loner, a loser, a misfit, if that's not more the case. >> i have been in the house of osama bin laden in jalalabad. i have seen how he got multiple generations to follow what he believed. isis is just the fifth generation of that corrupt ideology. but then when you get down to the street level, you have these former petty criminals, these guys who were really sort of losers in their own soetciety. even christians, we have seen catholics who converted to islam and carried out acts of terror. you see a person who either has a mental defect or some loss or vacuum in their world, and they decide isis and their ideology will validate them once and for all in their life. >> let's bring in nbc news white

house correspondent kristen welker, what do we know from the white house? >> reporter: white house officials continue to monitor the ongoing developments out of new york. the president has been briefed by the chief of staff. we just got a statement from 2 president. our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of today's terrorist attack in new york city and their families. my administration will provide it's full support to the new york city police department including to a joint investigation with the federal bureau of investigation. so president trump coming out, referring to this as a terrorist attack. also, chris, in earlier tweets talking about the need to make sure that isis does not come here to the united states. of course this is a familiar talking point that we have heard from this president that go all the way back to his days on the campaign trail. the first lady is in new york right now, she tweeted out thought and prayers to the victims and their families as well. this is something that obviously hits particularly close to home. this is happening about four

miles away from where trump tower is. it's also happening, chris, at a moment that the president is preparing to go on what will likely be his most consequential foreign trip to date, he's going to asia. it they are monitoring the situation very closely, obviously getting tough on terror has been one of the president's key promises. i would be very surprised if we didn't hear from him on camera in some capacity at some point tomorrow about this, chris. >> i don't want to put you on the spot. he said there was some connection between this act of terror in new york city, and the demise of the territorial reach of isis in iraq and syria. is there any known connection to this act of terror and isis in

syria or iraq? >> i do think that this president talks about the fact that the military is diminishing in his words isis around the globe, that's obviously something that may be up for debate in various regions. but this is something he talks about on a very regular basis, this has been a central piece of hiss foreign policy. but it's essential to underscore at this point in time there doesn't seem to be or there hasn't yet been a connection between isis -- or at least not officially. as we begin to learn more, that will be one of the key questions at the forefront. but bottom line, i think the president will continue to make the case that this is one of those moments that underscores the need to tighten the borders. this is something that he talks about frequently. nbc news's ron allen joins us from the scene in lower

manhatt manhattan. thank you for joining us tonight at that scene of horror in southern manhattan. >> a lot of new yorkers are still trying to digest what has happened. but from miss vantage point people have just trying to get on with it. there are some halloween trick-or-treaters over there going into some stores and we are just a few blocks from west street back there where the attack happened. as you know, new york is a very dense play, there are a lot of visitors here, there's two elementary schools and a high school that were essentially on block lockdown for quite a while while all this was going on because they weren't sure what the target was. there were a lot of young people in the area. about an hour ago, i saw a lot of kids coming out of the school and walking right past the crime scene getting their halloween

costumes and getting on with it. there are neighborhood gatherings an around town. i'm sure the police are being extra vigilant. we heard earlier that the mayor was going out to inspect one location where the police were, trying to make sure that the biggest halloween party of the city, the one in the village was safe and the police will tell you here that, you know, this is one of the safest cities in the world, and that they do everything possible to prevent th this. and one of the biggest questions is what kind of individual carried out this attack and intelligence is one of the tools they use to stop these things from happening. the voefinvestigation continues

to how it happened and why it happened. there are so many places that could be attacked in new york city, but it doesn't happen that often. >> coming up, we'll have more on this breaking news about the terror attack that unfolded this afternoon in new york city. we'll be right back. what started as a passion...

...has grown into an enterprise. that's why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. now, i'm earning unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase i make. everything. what's in your wallet?

back to our continuing coverage of our terror attack in new york city this afternoon. let's get the latest on the investigation. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, what do we know? >> we believe that authorities are now preparing to interview this man who's in the hospital in new york. now you're looking at a picture of him from his truck driving license. he had a truck driving business, he was a driver, a licensed truck driver, lived for a time in ohio, lived in florida, took mail at an address in paterson, new jersey new jersey. you'll see him on the ground there after he was shot by the police, wounded by the police, after he rammed the pick-up truck that he rented earlier and

fired a pellet gun at people. this is the night scene as investigators continue their activity. but you saw the battered pick-up truck there. but my understanding is they're preparing to interview him under a procedure they have used a couple of times before with the und underwear bomber and then after the capture of dzhokhar tsarnaev in boston. they'll question him before giving him the miranda warning, they'll simply go in and question him. and the courts have approved this procedure because of what's called the public safety exception when there's a question about anyone elsine beg out there, that's a big question

here, was there anybody else helping him out. they're going to do that tonight. we know he's 29 years old. he's a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder, who came to the u.s. several years ago. he was carrying a driver's license with an address in tampa, florida, authorities have gone to that address, they're also going to his ohio address as well. court records show he had some minor brushes in the law a couple of years ago in pennsylvania involving his driving. and back then gave an address in patterson but we think he was actually living in ohio. now the fbi is acting on several fronts, they're trying to trace his movements in new york, where did he rent the truck, they have the truck rental record which is an important lead, they're talking to family and friends, and of course he himself what's in the hospital recovering from the wounds. so was he in touch with terror

groups directly, or was he just inspired? there's no way to know that right now. he used a method of attack that's been used by other terror groups and that has been encouraged as a method of terror attack by isis, al qaeda and others, and secondly that he jumped out and said allah akbar, but anything beyond that, we don't know of yet. we don't know what he's going to say in the interrogation, we don't know if authorities are going to learn anything from his social media. that's going to take some time. that will be a big question, what was he looking at on social media? where were his internet searches? was he looking at isis propaganda? was he aware of these other attacks? so the reason they're calling this a terror attack is for the obvious reason that you and everybody else can see. >> do you see any evidence here of any conspiracy or larger

enterprise that led to this today. >> everybody we have talked to tonight doesn't see any indication of that, all they can tell you is what they know, it's early, they have no sign that anybody else was involved in this. based on the very early work. but it's been a little over four hours since this happened so it's still very, very early. but no sign of that yet. >> as an uz becbeki, why would have any anger towards the united states? >> that's a good question, he was earning a living here in the united states, earning a living as a truck driver. seems to have been integrated into society. we have talked to one person who says he was a friend of his, saw no sign of this, didn't hear him spouting radical propaganda, seemed to be a friendly person.

so that's a just a complete safesaf cipher at this point. >> joining us now is a former lieutenant in the nypd. what are you looking at here? >> this is an interesting dynamic because this happened one-eighth of a mile away from the -- that's why we had such a quick and swift response in this situation, i mean it's an arduous process to investigate these types of terrorist attacks, one of the things that we look at, the attack in nice, and the same held true with the attack in barcelona. these were teachable moments in law enforcement, and when we look to the translation of what happened in times square not too long ago where we had a vehicle that ran into the steel balance, this may be a water shed moment in how we fortify places like

this bike path. we have a police department of 38,000 members in a city of 8.5 million people. however, we're moving forward, when we're looking at the technological advances and the nuances in law enforcement to better protect citizens and the people of new york. >> let's welcome shaun henry. pz your sense of this, it looks like one of these suicidal attempts, he had two weapons with the intention of drawing fire, he had no plan, he plowed into a school bus. a lot of these crimes is like a guy that's reached a dead end. >> we have seen dozens of these types of attacks, low level, not a lot of resources required.

not a lot of time to create a maximum impact and fear and uncertainty in the community and devastation. so it appears to be that at this point, but as many of the other analysts have described, this is way too early, there will be a lot of investigation. you've got the fbi now, in at least five separate locations doing interviews, in coordination with the new york city police and other law enforcement agencies, they're in new york, in new jersey and ohio and florida. they're certainly over in uzbekistan, if this man traveled from that country into the u.s. one thing to remember, i think, is there's two simultaneous events going on. you've got the people at the scene who are collecting information and intelligence. they are looking to identify everything they can about this man. the other agents and officers are looking at the potential

that there might be somebody else. i have heard many people say it's a lone wolf. and it certainly appears th s t way. but the stakes are too high to leave it as such and law enforcement been pursuing the potential that there may be others involved. people that collaborated about him or at the very at least new about this type of attack. >> new york seems to be resilience and proves itself to be resilient ever since 9/11. it could be seen as callousness, but it's also a survival of spirit. people are out enjoying halloween, that's become a big holiday, it's a way to scare yourself in a not really dangerous way, just sort of enjoying the thrill of it all and the fun of it all. this guy didn't change new york, he didn't accomplish any goal, he's got a bullet in his stomach or had one, he's killed eight people and wounded 15 others,

but what has he done? maybe this is too cosmic a question, but so what? is anybody in the world going to give him a good press? is he going to get a good press in uzbekistan, is anybody going to cheer him tonight to say that he did something good to see if there was any collaboration? >> he will get a lot of press. we're talking about this now of course to make sure that citizens are aware of what's going on. itsis or al qaeda or any other jihadi group will take credit for this. it's about seduction, it's about misinformation, it's trying to appeal to the weak minded to get them to move forward on behalf of the cause. unfortunately, the spirit of new york moves on.

the goal is to inspire fear, they're not doing that in new york tonight. the people of new york are stepping up and they're going to make a statement, chris. >> it's the ultimate soft target, a bunch of people, regular people, getting some exercise on their bikes on a bike path. how does that show courage to mow them down with a vehicle. how does that show any kind of daring or resolve or any value? i would think you would have to be very desperate people in the world to think that was a win. >> those are the weak minded. those are the weak minded. those that are being recruited into this cause into this movement are weak minded, they are people who are isolated, oftentimes dysfunctional and those are the ones that are receptive to this type of rhetoric and are being taken to the cause, this is clearly an act of cowardice, innocent civilians enjoying a fall day and this guy goes out and kills

them callously and the citizens of new york are standing up, people around the united states and quite frankly around the world. >> it would be easy for someone to say, i could rent a car and i could do this. it seems to have such a low threshold of mechanical skill required. it's one thing to hit somebody by accident and jam your brakes on and try to help the person, when you mow evover somebody an keep mowing over other people, it takes a kind of person that i hope is very rare. >> this is right out of the jihadi playbook, because it is low level, does not require a lot of training, the resources are readily at hand, a truck, anybody can get their hand on it and because it is a soft target, you have the ability to harm a

multitude of people in a very short period of time, so we will continue to see these type of terrorist incidents. we have got law enforcement and nypd being one of the best police departments in the world. they are barriers set up, and unless we have a complete shutdown of the city, we're never going to have 100% security, chris. >> besides this hatred, and attempt to do harm to people demoralizes them and forces them to become more of a police state. you can't stop somebody from doing this unless you have a real 1984 police state that spots a driver hitting people an starts shooting at them, that would be a hell of a police

statd state. >> introduce to them that we're working together, this is a symbiotic relationship between the police and the community and the islamic community. one thing that these people fear- >> they pick up on some international broadcast of some kind, somebody in iran or afghanistan intending out a message of hate, how do you spot it happening? >> within thing that islamic people fear is going to hell. they commit these atrocities on the expectation of being rewarded by allah. we need people within the islamic community that you're not going to meet allah, you're going to hell. >> don't we preach that in the united states, that kind of message? >> we do have a strong message within the islamic community

that islam is diametrically opposed to -- the greater part of the islamic community can assist us and it goes back to that symbiotic relationship between police departments, communities and the islamic communities to banish these people and not give them a proper burial. >> that's a strong admonition. let's look at some reaction that was actually on the scene today when the attack unfolded. >> when i'm leaving work, i'm walking down towards the tower, and when i'm going to cross the street, i hear a loud commotion coming from behind me. so when i go back across where i was crossing the street from, i looked down and i see a truck going down towards chambers street. and i'm saying, what's going on? so as i go down more.

i -- he's in the bike lane, clearly in the bike lane, and when i go down, i see two gentlemen laying right there in the bike lane with tire marks across their body and you could tell that they're not here no more. >> shaun, this is an obvious question, but we have great confidence in our country, that people come from all over the world, even the islamic world, even if it's the soviet union or the middle east, by the time their kids are raised here, they have pick abecome american. is there a sense that that pattern is assimilation isn't working? or is it still working in the main? >> i don't think it's breaking down, i have talked to immigrants who have been here 20 years and as recent as six

months and they talk about thanksgiving being a favorite holiday of theirs because it reallyislam. these are people who are susceptible to this type of rhetoric. it's a small minority of the islamic population and there is an opportunity for the communities to come together and try to identify people, reach out to them, people who are subjected or suspect to this type of recruitment. it's not very different from the gangs, the street gangs that we see in a lot of urban areas, the inner city. the same type of philosophy in terms of outreach and policing that helps to stem those types of crimes, chris. >> again back to the basics of street policing, is there any way to prepare for somebody to pick a car, rent a car, own a car and start driving down a pedestrian or a bike way and just start killing people and wounding people, is there any

way to stop it? it seems to me there isn't. it's such a primitive method of warfare, of death, of terrorism. it's at the fingertips of anybody to be a killer that way. >> it starts with the intelligence on the forefront of this, identifying the attacker before they get behind the wheel, before they pick up a knife, before they grab a gun. that's the intelligence policing that is used by the joint terrorism task forces. the use of international cooperation, the intelligence community, but more importantly where we've got these self-radicalized individuals who are doing this and of course we don't know yet because this investigation is still early on, but in some of the recent cases that we've seen, somebody that did not have an external communication with a foreign entity or islamic group or or jihadi group but those who are self-radicalized online, looking for people who are closely connected.

neighbors, co-workers, family members, parents that see something that's unusual, some unusual change in behavior, somebody who's recently traveled and come back and their demeanor has changed, these are the forerunners, the indicators that help law enforcement, and if those that are closest to those types of individuals come forward, it's an opportunity to stop these attacks in advance. but once somebody's behind the wheel of a car, you can't stop that, chris, not in this day and age in a world where we live in a free society in the united states. >> it is a free society. thank you very much, shawn henry. we're talking about the death of 8 people down in southern manhattan today late afternoon. 15 are wounded or injured now in the hospital. we're also talking about the suspect now who's sayfullo saipov. he comes from what we call uzbekistan, the former soviet

republic union. let's bring in retired atf special agent, jim kavanaugh. thank you for coming on. is this a low level terrorist act, it has no significance beyond we live in a free society and occasionally we get a bad person who wants to make some sort of hideous statement? >> he's a mad dog loser and we're always going to have these guys as you were discussing with shawn and that's true. but chris, i like to think that there's complicated things that we can do that our intelligence enforcement do, our wire intercepts, all those things are complicated when we need to do better at them but there's simple things we can do too. should we really have long pedestrian malls, pedestrian malls now that are frequented by pedestrians and bias kicyclers.

when you look down the views of the camera and see that long stretch, that's only for pedestrian use. that can be defeated in the future by some boulders, three boulders across that stretch can keep a vehicle like that from accelerating. >> how about tiger teeth? >> sure. there's all kinds of things they can put out there. when we say -- we're sort of self-debt self-defeating, i don't agree with that assessment. my assessment is we can always do better. and we have looked at attacks on malls where pedestrians stroll in nice, in brussels, in i think sweden had one, the london bridge, now we have a new york -- these are places where pedestrians stroll. now, you can't do it on every city sidewalk, i totally agree with that, but often there you have lamp posts and you have

trees and you have other obstructions. and we saw the times square guy who was berserk, got hung up on the bollards in times square. those things can work. it might take a little bit of thinking but we shouldn't sit here the next time some truck runs down a 14-block pedestrian mall and say there's nothing we can do about it because there is something we can do about it. we know what can stop a vehicle and the city fathers and the community leaders of their community got to look at their mall and say, no, we're going to make it so you didn't do that on our pedestrian mall. so we can do simple things, we should, because this is a common attack method. we've got to do the counter extremism on the internet and that's what's bringing a lot of this radicalization. >> jim, thank you for that knowledge. let's listen now to one of the other eye witnesses to today's horror. >> i wasn't nervous. i was just kind of anxious to

get out of the school and i thought it would end quickly because we weren't sure if it was a drill either. there kept being announcements saying we're still in shelter. >> the fbi arrived and that's when i think it started to dawn on people that it wasn't just a car accident, it was something more than a car accident. >> back to shawn henry, reaching the end of the hour, shawn. do you have any thoughts about this? we're going to hear more of these as we get older, it's just a fact. and the question is, is this something that -- jim kavanaugh just said there are remedial steps we can take to prevent the creation of spaces where criminals can do just about anything. what do you think? >> there certainly is more that we can do but it's going to be done with sacrifice. there's a lot that could be done. we saw what happened in las vegas, not tide to jihadi radicalism at this point but do

you put metal detectors in every single hotel, supermarket, delicatessen or pizza parlor. if you want to raise the security, you're going to have to somehow compromise on civil liberties and privacy. we've already done that. we've done that in airports and elsewhere and americans have agreed to that. they've accepted it because they realize the risks and threats. we need to turn to the community to help identify people. certainly from a physical perspective there's more that we can do, but it's always going to be a balance between civil liberties, privacy, our freedoms and security and americans are going to have to make that choice. this will be a long-term decision process as we go forward. there's no short-term answer or it would have been solved. these one of those issues, chris, that i think we are going to be dealing with for many years in the future. >> let me get back to jim kavanaugh. when i first came to washington you could go to the capitol

building, walk in the door, look for your member of congress who represents you, meet the receptionist, attemtell them yo wanted to talk. now they herd you into a visitor's center underground. you used to be able to drive your horn as loud as you wanted to blow it and say nixon, get out of there. that freedom is going away because of terrorism. >> right. we had bombs at the u.s. capitol. we had officers killed at the u.s. capitol. we had the attack by terrorists at the blair house when truman was president, trying to kill truman. after oklahoma city constitution avenue was closed down because the threat of a vehicle bomb was much greater. so yes, it changes everything. we've got to change wit bh it b we got to work on it, do better, work the complicated and the

simple, do all those things to be able to live the life we want. >> thank you so much, jim kavanaugh, for joining us and thank you, shawn henry. let's bring in nbc news kristen dal gren from lower manhattan. >> reporter: we have the crime scene trucks going in right now as you can see those flashing lights headed down to where this vehicle remains. also still seeing bicycles strewn around the area and they'll be looking, trying to figure out exactly what happened. we're hearing from a lot of eye witnesses here about how that truck drove up on the bike path, hitting pedestrians and cyclists along the way, ultimately appearing to target a school bus and running into that. the driver then getting out with those two what looked like guns at the time. now we know paint ball guns but still a very active scene down

here. >> thank you very much kristen d dalgrena dalgren. stay tuned to msnbc for continuing coverage throughout the evening. my colleague chris hayes is going to pick up right now on this situation as we continue our coverage on msnbc for this night of terror in manhattan which of course is always the target because it's the center of the universe in many ways in terms of finance, communications, culture. the enemies of our country tend to look, unfortunately, first in new york. here he is, my colleague, chris hayes, who picks up our coverage. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. on what has been another overwhelming day of news including several major developments stemming from yesterday's blockbuster indictments and the guilt