the school shooting today in south florida continues this hour. we are right now awaiting a live press conference from the florida governor. we'll bring you that as soon as it starts. we expect the governor will have new information for us about this mass shooting today. and the investigation into exactly what happened. while we are awaiting that live event, i want to let you know cnn and nbc just broken some totally unrelated important news out of washington. just in the past hour. cnn first to report that as of at least november, it is more than 100 white house officials who have been working at the white house despite not being able to obtain security clearance. more than 100 officials operating without full security clearance including the president's daughter. as well as her husband jared kushner ner. and even the white house counsel

don mcgahn. operating without full security clearance. that news is breaking tonight. breaking in light of the ongoing scandal surrounding the secretary who left last week. now we're going live to parkland, florida. hearing from the governor. >> another horrific day. a detestable day. i'm sick to my stomach to see children who go to school armed with backpacks and pencils lose their lives. this nation we need to see something and say something. if we see different behavior, abhorrent behavior. report it to local authorities. since we have last briefed we have identified 12 victims. within this school. we will not be releasing the names of any victims until every family and every parent is

notified accordingly. as soon as that has been done, of course we will release the list. i want to thank you for allowing me to get the information to folks we need. i'll bring up mr. runs. he's speak about the issues the school board is incuring as superintendent. the decisions he's made. and then you'll hear from governor scott. we'll take any questions. and then we'll probably give you your next briefing tomorrow. thank you. >> this evening our district is in the tremendous state of grief. sorrow, we're heartbroken. over this unspeakable tragedy that occurred here in parkland, florida. words cannot express the sorrow that we feel. the victims in their families

are thoughts and prayers go out to them. no parent should ever have to send their kids to school and have them not return. that should not happen in parkland, it shouldn't happen anywhere in the country. and this we have to find a way for this to stop. as a district we will continue to work with law enforcement. we are focusing on providing all of the support that our students, our family and employees need. to cope with this devastating tragedy. it's going to take some time to go through this. to heal. to figure out how to move on. some updates on douglas. as for activities and school we'll be closed for the rest of the week. all activities will be cancelled

as well. we are going to provide grief counsellors. they will be available to students and families. at the pines trails park recreation center and amphitheater. located at 10555 trails end parkland florida. beginning 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. grief counsellors for parents and families at pine trails park recreational center. in parkland. we will also have grief counsellors available for staff members at the park and library at 6620 north university drive in parkland. again, for the staff members we will have grief counsellors available a the parkland library. 6620 north university. grief counsellors will be available at west way middle school. which is right adjacent to this

high school. and what i can tell you about today's shooter, today's shooter was a former student. and was currently enrolled in broward county public school. because of federal law around student privacy i can't provide you additional information about the student at this time. again, we are tremendously heartbroken. saddened. our prayers and thoughts go out to the family. and the victims. we're going to pull through this together as a community. this has been a day we have seen the worst in humanity. tomorrow is going to bring out the best in humanity. as we come together to move forward from this unspeakable tragedy. and i would like to thank sheriff israel. and all the law enforcement agencies. it's been unbelievable the

courage the support. almost every municipality has been here. coordinated and working non-stop. the governor his office, the state, everyone has just been out standing in terms of their support and effort. and it's been heartwarming to see that. so as a community as a state, i'm sure we'll be able to recover from this. governor scott. thank you. >> so as soon as you hear something like this is happening, the first thing you start thinking about the families. you think about your own family. as a grandparent and a parent. you think about you have to understand what happens to my family. then you always think about you're furious. how could this happen in this country? in this state? this is state that is focussed

on keeping all of the children safe. you come to the conclusion that is just absolutely pure evil. this state doesn't tolerate violence. we have law enforcement that will always show up to defend our safety. as soon as this happened, i started having updates from sheriff israel. i have talked to president trump. secretary of homeland security. superintendent. the commissioner of law enforcement. our florida department of law enforcement. and i know everybody is worked tirelessly to make sure we do everything to keep everybody safe. and have a thorough investigation. my prayers are with everybody impacted. i can't imagine what the families that are sitting there wondering if they lost a family member. they don't know yet. those that do know, i just i

can't imagine how their lives have been changed. like all of us we're be prayering for them. everybody in the hospital i pray for their full recovery. all the individuals that unfortunately had to go through this experience, i know that there's going to be grief counsellors and i'll sure it will be difficult as they think through what happened. and replay in their mind what happened. i can't imagine going through that. after this press conference i'll go to the hospital to do everything i can with the families. i'm going to continue to let local law enforcement the school district, everybody involved know whatever state resources are necessary we will provide whatever resources are needed to do everything we can either whether it's investigation or help any family member that's impacted. i just this is just pure evil. i will be staying here in broward county to do everything i can to be helpful.

>> basically minutes after this event happened, i got a call from our attorney general. hours later she's here. she sadly when i was speaking to her privately she knows all too well about these tragedies. she was in orlando in the pulse nightclub. and come down here to help the families of those that lost loved ones. so i'll bring her up and talk about some of the things that the attorney general will do for our families. >> thank you, sheriff. i cannot thank you and the governor and the fbi. you have handled this and you have been incrediblement superintendent. all of the agencies working together. it's a horrible tragedy sadly we have been through this before. i was in nevada for the mass shooting. one of the victims called me from the nevada shooting and said i can't believe this is

happening again. she has ptsd and she was a survivor. the office my office functions in a way. this is what we'll be doing. i have five advocates headed in. at least ten more tomorrow. driving in from all over the state. we will pay for the funeral expense ts of these poor victims. and do everything we can to help the families. the state of florida we will pay for counselling. for the surviving victims. we will pay for students who need counselling. we will have the forms and paper work that just a page that must be filled out. we bring it to the victims families so they can get it done right now. don't worry about the expense. we'll take care of it. go fund me reached out already tonight. they have been pulling off anyone. if you this you'll scam people during this tragedy, you're not. go fund me is monitoring every site that's popping up. and no money will be dispersed under go fund me until they know

it's legitimate. if you are donating to a crowd funding site, go fund me is making sure that those funds will go to true victims and their families. we have reached out to the funeral home. the director in florida have been great partners through pulse. we'll not funeral homes gouge us. the industry they are sending down people tomorrow to help with the cost of the burial expenses for the victims. sadly we have all become a club we never want to be a part of. partnering with the fbi, and now this is our third time dealing with such a mass tragedy. we will continue to work together as a team. as a family. and love and take care of all of the victims and their family members. that's why we're here. governor, thank you for everything you've done and do for our state. >> the attorney general brings in victims advocates.

her team will go through and help each family that has -- the best way is reach out to the attorney general office. >> we'll find the victims. >> in conclusion. this beautiful town of parkland where i have lived up until a year ago i have lived here with my family and raised our kids here for ten years. we lost a football coach from the high school tonight. my triplets graduated from this very school. we had i won't be releasing the name. a deputy sheriff who is son was shot tonight. shot in the arm. he's in the hospital. i'm being told he's being treated with non-life threatening injuries. thank god. if you are on a web site and know something or see something, you see a person with a rifle and weapons. and see something tha not right. you owe it to your family and community, and law enforcement

to make this a safer nation by calling up someone. tonight, call up the fbi. call up the sheriff office. call up someone tonight and let them know that you have information something is not right. you can prevent a major tragedy like this devastation that happened in parkland tonight. any questions? >> fox news. can you provide insight on the 17 fatalities. ages. how many students and teachers. all of the parents in fact been notified? if they have a deceased son or daughter. >> 12 victims have been identified. their parents are in the process of being notified. we're looking to id some of the children had no id. they had no they left the backpacks. no cell phones. we're in the process of

identifying these children. and adults. so their families can be notified. i can't elaborate anymore. >> have you identified all students? is anyone missing? >> we have identified 12 of the 17. that have lost their lives. >> do you know anyone missing? >> everybody is accounted for. we're identifying the victims. we don't know the names. >> you have accounted for all the students? >> yes. >> governor. question for you. [ inaudible question ]

>> my heart goes out to everybody impacted today. all of us can internize this if it happened to their family. all of us want to live and have everybody live in a safe community. there's a time we can have the conversation about how through law enforcement, how through mental illness funding we make sure people are safe. and we'll continue to do that. >> what business does a 19 year-old having in having an ar 15. specifically your thoughts? >> we're finding out the facts. there's a thorough investigation going on. the sheriff department will release what happened. and how things like that. we're learning those things and

we can determine the future. how we can continue to make the place safe. >> what was your conversation armed guards in the school? to prevent this type of tragedy. should we have arm d guards? >> you can answer. >> if a person i have said this over and over again, if a person is predisposed to commit such a horrific event like going to a school and shoot people, if a person is going to drive a truck into a crowded area, if a personal is committed to committing great carnage, there's not anybody or not a lot more law enforcement can do about it. or any entity. the only thing we can do is train hard. we have to train rigorously and we do. we have to mitigate. we have to respond quickly. so we can lessen the loss of life. certainly more money should go to mental health. i have said this time and time

again, if we tear a knee up we go to a surgeon. if we have mental health issues with e need to be treated. while people are the victim of mental health illness in the country are being treated. they shouldn't be able to buy, surround themselves, purchase or carry a handgun. those two don't mix. so thank you for coming out here. we have answered all the appropriate questions. and tomorrow we'll update you again. and again most important thing is we need to pray tonight for the families. pray for the victims. we need to pray for the community. and we need to report anything we see that is different that doesn't make sense, that's an abh abh abhor. that prevent the tragedies. >> that last speaker there is broward county sheriff. in terms of news that was explained there. sheriff announced earlier today

that there were 17 people killed in this mass shooting today in south florida. tonight announcing no additional fatalities and announcing after questioning by the press that they do not believe there's anybody including students unaccounted for. so again the death toll stands at 17. the sheriff anountsed that of the 17 people killed, he said 12 of the deceased have been identified. not yet announcing names as notification of family continues. we heard from the superintendent. who announced that the shooter the alleged shooter in the case is -- there had been reporting about this earlier -- a former student of the school. that was attacked today. but the superintendent also said that he is a current broward county school district student as well. so he didn't elaborate. he wouldn't give further details. because of privacy rules. but that i believe is new

details for us tonight in terms of the affiliation of the alleged shooter in the case. governor rick scott spoke tonight. he didn't provide any new information or news. thfts an event of pure evil. the florida attorney general said the state will pay for funeral expenses and counselling. for survivors and victims. sheriff then did say although he said there wouldn't be any confirmation at this event this evening at this briefing that we saw about the victims, he did say that a football coach is among the casualties from the event. and he said that a sheriff deputy's son is among those who was wounded. he described that as a student a male student being shot in the arm. who is expected to survive. open up to questions multiple questions about guns. about why this particular alleged shooter had access to this type of gun.

and gun policy. more broadly strikeingly as is often the case in situations like this, we saw both the sheriff and the governor in particular turn those question ts immediately away from talking about guns to instead talk about mental illness. they made no public statements about mental illness for the shooting in this case. obviously they are much more comfortable talking about the issue of mental illness than the tool he used to kill the people today. in south florida. that like so many other things about the mass shootings has become something you can see coming in advance. a hag mallmark of this. like a

only to do an about face when security started yelling code red, code red, means there is an active shooter on campus. so she and her 19 students turned around, came back inside, hid in the closet until s.w.a.t. teams arrived to tell them it was safe to come out. the school has an agreed upon code for a situation like this because they have actively prepared as a school for this eventuality. students and teachers, they do drills to practice how to walk down, how to barricade safely inside in the event of somebody

with a gun attacking that school. but even with that preparation, even with those protocols, not only in place, but regularly practiced, the death toll today is still astonishing. we do have access to some videos that were taken by students inside the school today while the shooter was still active, still moving through the hallways. i'll warn you, these are short video clips from students' phones, but even as short clips, they're difficult to watch. i will give you a second now if you want to turn down the sound or not see this, but now we are going to go ahead and show them. [ gunshots ] >> oh, my god! oh, my god! [ screaming ] >> it is honestly hard to and

obviously hard to watch that video, in terms of patterns in terms of what type of event this is. you know, it's hard to keep track. we alone in the world as a country are plagued by this problem as a multiple times per week occurrence, but we think this latest assault is at least the 18th school shooting in this country this year, just since the start of 2018. not even halfway into february. this sort of massacre happens enough now that we're used to there being a few standard patterns for these kinds of american mass murderers. one departure from those standard typical patterns is that in this case the alleged shooter survived. that's unusual for these kinds of cases. in this case he's 19 years old, a former student from the school. he was reportedly expelled from the school that he shot up today. the superintendent of broward county schools said today that

he was still a student of broward county schools even though he had been expelled from this one. the alleged shooter was taken into custody about an hour after the attack. he was apparently taken into custody about three quarters of a mile down the road from the school's campus. that means in the midst of the chaos caused by his attack, at least for a while, he was able to escape the scene. in addition to the dozen victims killed inside the school, we believe several of the victims were shot outside the school. we expect eventually law enforcement will give us a more detailed time line of exactly how the attack unfoldedment for now we believe this was a lone attacker with a lone gun, with a single gun. and without me even saying it, you already know what i'm going to say that gun is. a semiautomatic assault-style rifle of a type commonly described as an ar-15. when it comes to gun massacres in our country, the ar-15 is hands down the mass murder weapon of choice in this era in

our country. joining us now is melissa, a teacher at marjorie stone ham douglas high school in farquharson land, florida, whose party described. thank you very much for being here today. i'm so sorry for what you went through today. >> thank you. >> can you just describe what happened? i know you were teaching class at the time of the shooting. i know it was tard toward the e the school day. can you walk me through what you went through with your students? >> the day was winding down. we had about ten minutes left. in the last period of the day i teach newspaper. i was working with the kids making a school newspaper and the fire alarm went off for a second time today and so we followed the protocol, which is to evacuate. and so, you know, i grabbed my emergency folder and we started to file out the door. and then, you know, we made it to the stairwell and one of the security -- one of the security people that's posted in my

building said, no, go back. it's a code red. so, you know, i immediately called to the kids, the other teachers who were there, they called to the kids to turn around and come back. and so, you know, i went back to my room. i unlocked the door. i let the kids in. most of the students who were in my class at the time managed to make it back do me. some of them ended up in another classroom because it was closer. and then, you know, we sort of -- the teachers who were in the hallway were opening up their doors yelling to all the kids in the hallway to get inside, to get in the nearest door, to take cover. so, after about a minute or minute and a half, we all closed up our doors and followed the procedures we had been taught which was to disappear basically is what they taught us, to move out of sight and to be silent and quiet. and after -- initially i thought it was a drill because we were told we would have an active shooter drill this semester and it would be unannounced. as we started to get passed more information, i realized it was, in fact, actually really

happening to us, was so hard to comprehend. and so then i made the decision to move the kids into the closet. >> and how many kids were in the class? how big was the closet, how long did you end up staying in there? >> i had 19 kids with me in the closet. it's a small closet. we were standing, you know, two by two in the closet. it was tight. and we were in there for about 30, 35 minutes. we were getting texts and information they were still looking, you know, for the shooter. so, i told the kids we were just going to stay put until either we heard an announcement or the s.w.a.t. team came to get us. >> and what eventually happened? how did you know when it was safe to come out? >> we heard noises and movement outside the door. and so we got really quiet and we just waited and we heard -- we heard someone enter the door and we heard noises in the

classroom. and we just sort of waited there and someone called out, you know, this is the police. is there anyone in here? and, you know, we had been trained that if someone entered with a key then that would be somebody who was okay to be there. so, we sort of slowly opened up the closet door and peepd out and said, we're in here. they had us file out one at a time with our hands up so they could check us and they started moving through the hallway and checking all the classrooms. >> you're describing so calmly your realization of that, that this wasn't a drill and your decision making about how to keep your kids safe and how to come out of that hiding place and everything. how were you able to stay calm in that moment? what was the fear level, the upset level among your 19 students? >> my kids were really -- the kids were really scared. you know, some of them were fine. some of them held it together really well. you know, on a personal level it was really hard for me. my mom called me in the middle of all this and i had to hang up with her because i was starting to get upset and i needed to be

there for the kids and to tell them it was going to be okay. it doesn't help if i'm sitting there crying, too. so, you know, i just kept telling them it was going to be okay and they were okay and everything was going to be okay and, you know, that helped i guess for them to get through it. >> you guys had your phones with you, you and presumably the students as well. you described receiving text messages as part of how you knew that this wasn't a drill, that this was a real-life situation. what kind of information were you guys getting while you were locked in that closet together in those tight quarters? were you able to follow anything that seemed like real information to you in terms of what kind of risk you were at or how the situation might be unfolding? >> i have a colleague and a close friend who works in the building where the shooting occurred and her and a few of us have, you know, kind of a group chat that we talk in sometimes. she told us that there was a

shooter and so that's how i knew that it was -- it was real. and then we were getting information from kids who were out there in the building. and so, you know, we tried to, you know, not listen to what is rumor, what isn't. at the very least we knew that it was real and that it was happening and we heard the sirens and the helicopters and so we knew that something was, you know, actually happening. >> it sounds to me like one of the things that ended up being a life saver today that may have been a mitigating factor in terms of it being a worse death toll was the training you had at school in terms of how to communicate the seriousness of the situation, knowing what to try to do in terms of keeping safe. do you feel like that training that you've gone through, those drills, the sort of emergency protocols that you have at your school, that they were the right kind of training now that you've been through this in real life? >> yeah, i definitely think so. we've made a lot of changes with

protocols this year. it was led by one of our assistant principals. i think that is what, you know, helped us be so prepared. i don't think we could have been more prepared than we were today. i mean, we had -- we talked to every single period that sat in front of us what to do in this situation in a bomb threat, in a fire drill, like we went over every -- and every single teacher did that with every single class that they had until the kids were tired of hearing about it. but they knew what to do. we knew what to do. and even so, even with that, we still had 17 casualties, 17 people that aren't going to return to their families. and to me that's totally unacceptable. and some, from my personal viewpoint, it's time for congress, government, somebody to do something and it's time to talk about what the problem is and try to fix it. >> it's been not very many hours since this happened. can i just ask you how you're doing?

>> i'm not really sure how i'm doing. i think i'm still in shock. i don't think i've really processed, you know, what happened. i had to go home to explain to my 7-year-old son who goes to the elementary school, literally a block away from the high school where i work about what happened today. so, i think i'm definitely shaken. i'm definitely -- still feel, you know, very stressed. but i don't really know where i'll be tomorrow or the next day or where the kids are going to be. i know it's going to be a long time before we return to any sort of sense of normalcy. >> melissa, teacher at marjorie stone and douglas high school at parkland florida was teaching journalism when this happened. i will tell you somewhere down the road when it seems like the right time, you and your 19 students are welcome to do a tour of the rachel maddow show and come sit on the show. journalism teachers are heroes even on normal days. thank you for your work. >> thank you. >> joining us now is the mayor

of parkland, florida, who is mayor christine hajofsky who has been through an incredible day herself in terms of trying to cope with this tragedy. this is broward county, florida, again, this is outside of fort lauderdale, outside of miami. this is the school where this happened today is a 3,000-student school, it's a very large school. we just heard a real vote of confidence today in the school itself from the teacher there who went through this today in terms of the training they went through. but there's no training that can get you ready for something like what happened today. madam mayor, thank you very much for joining us. i really appreciate you being with us today. >> thank you, rachel. >> can you just tell us, first of all right now, if there is anything you can give us in terms of an update of the investigation here. we did just have a law enforcement briefing confirming the horrific death toll of 17 dead. we've had some anecdotal reporting about some characteristics of the victims. we know that the alleged shooter in this case is in custody.

can you give us any further update on the investigation and the status of that right now? >> i don't have any additional updates on the investigation. you just heard from broward sheriff israel. they have identified 12 of the victims and they are notifying their families. in parkland, we are a very small community, a very close-knit community, very family oriented community, and unfortunately several parents are getting those phone calls right now that they've lost their children. >> in terms of the resources that have been brought to bear in terms of coping here, as you mention, this is -- parkland is not a large community. you are heavily populated part of the state. we've seen the top officials in the state and county sheriff intensively involved during the course of the day. do you in parkland feel you have the resources you need how to manage this crisis tonight and into tomorrow and the days ahead? >> while parkland is very small,

we've been very fortunate to have agencies coming together to support us through this. they have set up grief counseling for tomorrow at various locations throughout the city and we will all be working together to make sure the students and the families in our community get the support they need. >> do you know if there are any ongoing questions about missing persons or if there are families tonight who haven't been contacted? we were told by the sheriff that of the 17 deceased persons from this incident today there have been 12 identifications made. that, of course, raises the question about the additional five people who haven't, according to the sheriff, been identified. are there families tonight who don't yet know that their loved one is gone? >> yes, according to the sheriff, that's the situation we're in right now. >> okay. mayor christine hajofsky from parkland, florida. we're so sorry for what you went

through today. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> as we continue to cover the aftermath of the school, we had a law enforcement briefing at the top of the hour from the governor and the attorney general. the attorney jenna announced that the state is going to be paying for funeral expenses for everybody killed in the incident today. right now with the death toll standing at 17 and the sheriff saying that there are no students who are unaccounted for, that would make this the third worst school shooting in u.s. history after virginia tech in 2007 and newtown, connecticut, in 2012. we've got a little tape here that i want to show you which is some of the students who were caught up in this today, speaking earlier today about what they went through. watch. >> i ran. i called my mom immediately. yes, i told her there is a shooter, there's a shooter. she started like -- she went crazy. i ran to my classroom. i saw my teacher. he saw me.

he didn't let me in. i was like kind of really mad about that. i banged on the door, like let me in, let me in, let me in, me and my friend didn't know where to go. we finally saw a classroom and he let us in and i ran immediately in the closet and i just started hysterical crying. >> we thought it was blanks because we were thinking it was a drill. we're inside and then he gets a notification that we have to go hide. so, we all hide and they barricade the back door. we're all sitting in there. i'm calling my mom, telling her that, you know, i'm okay and we're safe in the room. >> a happy day. >> reporter: why are you so happy? >> i'm happy because i have my son with me. i just thank you, jesus. yes, i was very worried. >> some of the incredible stories that we saw unfolding over the course of the day today at marjorie stone and douglas high school in parkland, florida. i will say it is unusual in this case and it's remarkable that i

can tell you what is usual in this case, but the shooter in this case survived and has been taken into custody. we are told by law enforcement that he's 19 years old. he had previously attended this school, but we believe he had been expelled. superintendent of broward county schools said he is still a student of broward county schools so we don't know what any other details about what other schools he might be affiliated with or any of those other circumstances. we believe he acted alone. we believe it was one young man with one gun with multiple magazines of ammunition for that gun. as usual, the gun in this case was an ar-15 semiautomatic style rifle. it means it's not a machine gun, you hold the trigger down and it fires automatically. you can buyer accessories for assault weapons that makes them fire that way. semiautomatic assault rifle, you get one bullet every time you pull the trigger. that can be a way of unleashing

a lot of fire power in a short time. we don't have a lot of detail in terms of time here from law enforcement about how the event unfolded. we were told people were killed outside the school as well as at least a dozen of the 17 people being killed inside the school. we don't know yet how the shooter made his way through the school buildings. we don't know how much ammunition was used, how many ammunition magazines he employed. but we're starting to figure out -- we're trying to piece these things together the best we can through reporting. one of the unanswered questions here is how exactly he was filmed. we're told that the shooter in this case was not apprehended in the midst of the attack. it was after the attack ended and he was about three quarters of a mile away from the school when he was arrested. we are told he had minor injuries when he was arrested . he was taken to the hospital but the injuries are not expected to be life-threatening. we have so many mass shootings and even mass school shootings in this country that we are used

to a usual pattern of how these things unfold. there are departures from that usual pattern tonight particularly when it comes to there being a surviving shooter. joining us from outside marjorie stone and douglas high school, somebody talking to survivors and witnesses, nbc news correspondent tammy lightener. thanks for being with us. i know it's been an incredibly long day and long night already. >> reporter: rachel, after speaking with students and parents and teachers for the last six hours, we are beginning to understand what these students went through during that small period of time when the shooter was roaming their campus. and how some of them were able to escape and how some of them were forced to barricade themselves inside the school. there was one 14-year-old student who was texting with his mother from the school office and he was with three other students and he texted his mother and he said, there's a shooter. i don't know what to do. and she told him, barricade yourself in.

and for the next hour she stayed on the phone sending him text messages, telling him to hide, to go into a corner, to stay safe. there was another student that we talked to, 17-year-old hector navarro when those gunshots rang out, he didn't think it was safe to be anywhere inside that school. so, him and dozens of other students, they made their way to the back of the school. they ran with several other teachers and they were able to wedge themselves behind the school and a chain link fence. there is a canal that runs back there and run from the school. so, they were able to get away by distancing themselves. so, rachel, everybody had kind of a different story of how they were able to survive. each of these survivors, their own story, a lot of these students were in constant contact with their parents, texting them, telling them that they were okay, but they were afraid. and we spoke with a lot of these parents over the hours after the shooting. they came here to the school. we're about a block away.

a lot of them came here looking for their students, not knowing that they weren't here, that they were taken to another location, that they were still talking to police hours and hours after this happened. it was about four hours after the shooting parents were still showing up here. some parents hadn't yet gotten to hug their child, gotten to talk to them yet, gotten to see them. it is a very long process. as you can imagine, you know from covering a lot of these shootings, this process is going to continue to go on for the next days and weeks, the parents, the students, the teachers talking and continuing to heal and piece together why this student did this. >> tammy, on that time line, i think you're putting your finger on that in a way that is important. thinking about the terror that this community and that this school went through today, we don't yet have a strong time line from law enforcement in terms of how the attack unfolded and how long it took. but the ending of the attack,

the time when students and teachers and people who were terrorized by this incident or may have been hurt in this incident, the time at which they knew it was over is a very gray area. as far as we understand it, the perpetrator of the attack, the alleged shooter here, was able to leave the scene in the midst of all this chaos and was apprehended, not on the school grounds, but almost a mile away. that must have created incredible ambiguity. must have really lengthened out the amount of time anybody could have any clarity that this was over. >> reporter: it did and part of the reason we're still not clear on that time line is because the students and the teachers are told in these lockdown scenarios, in these active shooter scenarios, that you are supposed to go to a corner of the classroom, a corner of the school, and you are supposed to take cover and you are supposed to stay there until police come and get you, or at least until they notify you that it's safe. so, obviously this shooter had

left the school and yet the teachers and the students were still there waiting to be notified that it was safe to leave. and so because of that we don't have an exact time line yet. that's one of the things that will come out in the coming days. >> nbc news correspondent tammy lightener. tammy, thank you. i know it's been a tough day of reporting. thank you for being with us. i want to bring into the conversation now somebody who has been through this in a terrible way. lori hawes is someone whose daughter was shot twice during the shooting at virginia tech in 2007. she survived. 32 people were killed in that virginia tech shooting. since then, ms. hawes, lori hawes has advocated for gun safety, for gun violence prevention. she is now the virginia state director at the coalition to stop gun violence. and days like this are forward for the country. they are certainly hard for the survivors. they're a particular kind of hard for family members who have been through this sort of thing so traumatically before. ms. hawes, thank you for being with us tonight. i appreciate you taking the time

to be here. >> thank you for having me, rachel. >> obviously there have been a lot of mass shootings and even mass school shootings since the one that your daughter survived in 2007. i can't imagine, he to, how -- what kind of renewed trauma it must be for you and your family every time there is another horrific incident like this. >> it is really a trauma. it's renewed trauma for many, many families, dozens if not hundreds and now thousands of families who have been traumatized today, last week, the week before, the week before. you know, we see this over and over and over again and yet we have no action by those who are elected to keep us safe. congress continues to do nothing, and it's very frustrating and frankly makes me quite angry. >> what do you think that -- what do you think, if you could wave a magic wand and do anything in 2018 in american politics, to try to

constructively address this purely american problem that we've got? what would be your top priorities? >> my top priority is to change those seats in congress that have elected officials who are not doing anything about this issue. you know, in virginia in 2017, we change seats. those people who refused to do anything about gun violence lost in the elections in 2017 in virginia in a big way. it was the number two issue coming out of the polls. you know, i'm sure i will get criticized for, quote-unquote, politicizing the tragedy but it's too late. we should have politicized this after columbine. we should have politicized this after virginia tech. this is the ten year anniversary of the northern illinois university shooting. what in the world are we waiting for? you know, 20 children, 6-year-olds, so it's time to make changes. if our elected officials will not do what it takes to reduce

gun violence in this country -- and there's no one single magic wand. we have a lot of policies that need to be looked at. assault weapons ban, identifying people who are at risk of violence, you know, looking at access to weaponry and looking at where we carry and who carries. you know, there is not a single magic wand that is going to solve this. but we need to start something. and in my opinion, i think we change our elected leaders who are not doing their job to keep american citizens, school children, people who go to church, you know, people who are walking down the street, we need to make changes in this country. and i hope it happens in a big way in 2018 and i'm going to work on it. >> lori, let me also just ask you at a personal level, obviously you've seen today just over the course of this hour while you were waiting to come on with us, talking to people who were witnesses today, people who survived this. it appears from what law enforcement is telling us there are a number of people who were injured but who are likely to survive this.

you obviously went through that in your own family with your own daughter's experience at virginia tech. is there anything about your experience that you feel like you wish you had known early on? is there anything about the trauma of what you and your family went through that you feel like you could impart to these people who are experiencing this trauma anew tonight for the first time in terms of how to cope, how to move forward? >> well, everybody is different and everybody chooses their own path and healing looks different for many, many families, you know. my heart pours out to those families whose loved ones were killed. they weren't lost, they were killed by someone who shouldn't have had a gun. and i have a great deal of sympathy for those families and their grief journey is unimaginable and undescribable. for those parents whose children were shot and injured, you know, their journey is about worry. their journey is about stress and how to help their children heal and how to get through the posttraumatic stress disorder that they're going to suffer.

i would say that frankly and sadly there are many of us out there for them. there are many of us who are available to talk to other parents. we've been through this. you know, there were 32 students killed at virginia tech. there were 17 who were shot and injured. and there were many, many, many more who were, you know, injured emotionally, you know, who were exposed to the trauma. so, there's resources available for those who have been through this. it's a long, hard journey, but there are a lot of people out there who want to help and who want to support them. >> lori hawes, the coalition to stop violence whose daughter was a survivor of the virginia tech massacre. thank you very much for being with us tonight, lori. i really appreciate your time tonight. thank you. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> you know, to underscore what lori hawes just said there, when you are a large country like we are that has mass shootings, mass school shootings, mass church shootings, mass shootings

of all kinds at the pace that we do and you've had them for as long as we've had them at the increasing pace you've had them, one of the effects you get as a side effect of that is a large and -- by the week growing community of people who have lived through these tragedies firsthand. people who have family members who have been victims, people who themselves have been victims and survived, people who have been in the school or the church or the night club or the concert or wherever it was, and felt the bullets go by them. we are an incredibly large country, but we have a large and growing subset of our fellow citizens who are lifelong witnesses, lifelong -- in many cases they're lifelong traumatized or hurt by these things, but they are lifelong witnesses. i think ultimately those will be the people who keep us honest in terms of whether we ever, ever want to do anything concrete to stop this from happening in our country. those people will be the ones who keep us honest and there are more of them every week. we'll be right back.

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scenes of children running for their lives. what looks to be the 19th school shooting in this country, and we have not even hit march. this happens nowhere else other than the united states of america, this epidemic of mass slaughter, this scorge of school shooting after school shooting. it only happens here, not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but as a consequence of our inaction. we are responsible. for a level of mass a tropical system at this th-- atrocity th with zero peril anywhere else.

as a parent, it scares me to death that this body doesn't take seriously the safety of my children, and it seems like a lot of parents in south florida are going to be asking that same question later today. >> chris murphy is now a senator from the state of connecticut. when he was in the house, he used to represent the district that included newtown, connecticut. that district is now represented by congresswoman elizabeth estee. her district includes newtown. she was elected to that house shoot one month before the shooting of sandy hook in 2012 which killed 26 people including 20 young students. congressman estee joins us now. thank you for joining us on this difficult night. >> well, rachel, it's great to be with you, but i wish it were not yet again for another tragic shooting that didn't need to happen in america. >> when shootings like this happen, and this is one of the worst ever after virginia tech and after newtown, this is the

school shooting where more people were killed other than those two. you know that people are going to turn to you across the country for help in trying to understand it and trying to think -- trying to think constructively about why it happened, about what can be done, about how to move forward. you know the country is going to turn to you on nights like this. i wonder if that itself makes you angry. >> it does. today is valentine's day. today is a day when we celebrate love. we celebrate the people we care about and we make a point to tell them how much we care for them. and i think about those parents. i think about children whose bodies have not yet been identified, and you know there are going to be valentine's in some of those back packs that got abandoned in the terror and the fright. valentine's that will never be opened by children who will never come home and that's wrong. and we're a better country than that. >> what do you want congress to

do that congress isn't doing? >> to use its head and its heart. gun owners are parents, too, and gun owners need to stand up and use their voices and to demand that members of congress, regardless of their party affiliation, do the right thing here. you listen to melissa. what a brave teacher she is. >> uh-huh. >> and she saved lives today. she was prepared. she learned. we taught her good data about how to save lives, right? if our teachers can learn it and our superintendents and our law enforcement officials do what to do when the unimaginable happens, why can't members of congress look at the very convincing information out of states like mine, like connecticut with tough gun laws where we do save lives by smart sensible laws that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous

people. it is not rocket science. we can do this. we need the political backbone and the will of my colleagues. >> looking at parkland, florida today, do you feel like there are lessons from how newtown has made it through these past five years that could help that community? >> lean on your friends. ask for help. support the first responders. some of the people who have the hardest time truthfully will be the parents, the teachers, but especially teachers in the school and first responders. it's our first duty as a parent to protect our children. it's instinct. it's human nature. but it is the duty of a teacher to protect his or her students. and it's the duty of law enforcement to protect us all, and those adults who could not save those children's lives from an evil young man with a gun who should never have had one, they will be questioning the rest of their lives, what could they have done. and that is something no one

should have to live with. >> congresswoman elizabeth estee of connecticut, district includes newtown. thank you for joining us on a difficult night under difficult circumstances. i appreciate it. >> thank you, rachel. >> that does it for us tonight. we will see you lean on your friends the congresswoman told us in the aftermath of a situation like this, the from the heart experience of the things to do in the aftermath of a situation like this from the hard experience of newtown, sounds like an important piece of advice. >> just brutal advise. thank you, lawrence. >> thank you. two days ago, parkland, florida was named the safest city, that's not the case today. 17 were killed in the mass shooting at marjory stoneman douglas high school today. investigators have identified 12 of the dead but they have not released anyma