prjs if you're just joining us here on msnbc at the top of the hour, we continue to follow the breaking news out of poway, california. we have a lot of new details this hour for you. poway, california, if you're not familiar with it, 20 miles worth of san diego there in the southland of the state. there a gunman opening fire on a synagogue on a saturday, a day of worship, the last day of passover. this just happening hours ago. you're looking at some of the live shots there at 3:00 from one of the chopper cams that are down around the area. this could be, given the fact we have more information on the suspect, potentially a place of personal importance to the suspect. it could be his place of residence. actually as they pull back, there does now look to be the synagogue itself, the chabad of poway in california there, the synagogue i was talking about. four people were shot. one of them later dyeing.

the city's mayor has declared the attack a hate crime. authorities say they have a 19-year-old man in custody. he is being questioned right now. those are all new details that came up in the last 30 minutes. here's a little bit now from the mayor there of paw way, steve vaus, speaking last hour. >> i want you to know this is not poway. the poway i know comes together as we did just a few weeks ago at an interfaith event. we always walk with our arms around each other, and we will walk through this tragedy with our arms around each other. we have deep appreciation for those who showed courage at the chabad, deep appreciation for the law enforcement agencies that responded so quickly. we will get through this. our thoughts and prayers will be with the families and those who are investigating.

poway will stay strong, and we will always be a community that cares for one another. >> that was the mayor. again, very difficult for this leader of a town of just 50,000 people. a very close-knit town as you can probably tell right now. this as they try to understand why and how this all happened. joining us now by phone, executive director of the terror asymmetric project, terrorism analyst and a lot of other things, malcolm nance. you have been following this from the restart. far those of us just joining us at the top of the hour, from all of the information that came in from the news briefing, from the mayor, where do you think this started? where do you think it's going? and the big question, why? why did this person do this? >> well, from what we know from the initial briefing and the briefing by the mayor and intelligence we've been gathering just in general from some of the eyewitnesses, clearly a gunman stormed the

chabad of poway in the rancho bernardo area and shot four people. i think it's significant there was an off-duty border patrol officer who engaged him and caused him to flee. the suspect's been taken into custody. we know he's a 19-year-old young man from san diego proper. but these give us some indications as to the type of person who may be carrying out this attack. it was said he had an ar-style rifle and that he specifically went into the synagogue during this passover ceremony and carried out the shootings in which he's murdered one person and severely wounded three others. this is starting to look more like right wing extremism. there's some indications, there's some unconfirmed information out on the internet that we've only gotten in the last few minutes. we're not going to report on that until it's confirmed, but we're looking at someone who saw

the synagogue as a primary target and as we have learned since -- over the last certainly six months from today with the tree of life attack in pittsburgh, we might be looking at a right wing extremist. but, again, we don't know that until it's confirmed by the law enforcement authorities. >> malcolm, be careful on the words you use always, when we talk about right wing extremism and potential, we don't have it confirmed. as we go through this process, what are generally some of the characteristics that brings a person with your expertise to look that way as an option here? >> there are several indicators that we've been discussing over the last few hours, and you know, although they may look superficially like others, when taken in sequence, they're very significant. i want to call attention to the

shooter in pittsburgh, the mass murderer in norway, the mass murderer we saw at the mosque in new zealand, they all had the characteristics of a single shooter coming in with a semiautomatic weapon, going into a synagogue or a mosque on their day of worship and generally, unlike islamic extremist terrorists, they're not there on a suicide mission. they're there to be caught and to popularize their cause. now, again, we have not confirmed that, but that profile gives us an indication that this incident fits into those other profiles and is unlike the type of terrorist attacks that we see in other places where they do a hostage barricade or they're really going into mass murder everyone, then ensure that they themselves are killed. this per surrendered to law enforcement almost willingly.

and it remains to be seen considering his very young age, 19 years old, remains to be seen what his confession or what his political bent was and why he targeted that synagogue specifically. but i think we'll find out relatively soon. >> malcolm, stand by, i want to go to our correspondent there in los angeles in the southland. nbc news correspondent molly hunter. we have new information, and we have what we have seen over the past couple of hours, we're getting more and more elements of how this story came to pass. >> richard, good evening. that's right. we're getting little bits kind of every hour or so. the police have been pretty good about actually briefing reporters down there in san diego. of course, we're in los angeles. i just want to highlight a couple of new things since we last spoke. and we have more details about that suspect. i just heard you talking, some of the specifics, we know he as we 19. we know he was a white male. importantly, richard, we know he was using an ar-style rifle.

that was the exact type of rifle used, for example, six months ago in the attack on the pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 people. and also what we know in the last presser he was detained just down the road and detention was fairly easy. a police officer sees his car because they had gotten a call from chp and almost immediately the suspect gets out of his car, puts his hands up and the authorities who approached the car saw the rifle on the seat. so that was very easy. he clearly knew he was being zeroed in on. the other details that we're just getting, the president has spoken about this, richard, and he says, quote, my deepest sympathies to people affected by this. obviously it looks like a hate crime. we heard the mayor earlier call this a hate crime. the president continues and said looks like the law enforcement was apprehended. law enforcement did a fantastic job. we also heard from the vice president, vice president mike pence, tweeting we condemn in the strongest terms the

cowardice and evil shooting. no one should be fear in a house of worship. anti-semitism isn't just wrong, it's evil and melania trump tweeted on this last day of passover i was heartbroken to hear of another senseless shooting in a place of worship. my heart and prayers go tout all affected in the community. what we will probably get in coming hours we should hear hopefully from authorities again. right now they're fully in kind of investigation stage and cooperation. we know there's a command center. we know all arms of law enforcement are working together to try to figure out the motive and figure out why this guy went to this chabad, this synagogue on this day. and i heard you speak about this before, we know he's from this san diego area so was this some place he had been before? we don't know but hopefully law

enforcement will find out in the coming hour u.s. >> nbc's molly hunter in california, very close to the crime scene there. thank you for the update on what you have. we will touch base a little later to get more from the reaction molly was just describing there from the beltway. the white house and president, and we will go straight to our white house correspondent kelly o'donnell, who's been monitoring there in front of the white house. kelly, what are you seeing? >> well, we were waiting for the president outside on the south lawn and he was delayed and one can presume that might have been part of his accessing information about the shooting in san diego. and he gave us his initial comments about it. of course, limited at the time by what was known when the president was given his briefing on the situation. but the overarching themes are very clear of concern and surprise about yet another hate crime, as he described it. and, of course, there is also the response from the first lady and the vice president on this, noting this last day of passover and the heartbreak associated with all of this. i was among the reporters on the

south lawn. i asked the president for his response to the shooting, and here's part of what he told us. . >> my deepest sympathies go to the people that were affected, the families, their loved ones, by the obviously looks right now based on my last conversations, looks like a hate crime. hard to believe. hard to believe. with respect to the synagogue in california, near san diego. we're doing some very heavy research. we will see what happens, what comes up. at this moment it looks like a hate crime. but my deepest sympathies to all of those affected. and we'll get to the bottom of it. it looks like the person was apprehended. no more danger. and law enforcement's done a fantastic job. >> the president, of course,

praising law enforcement. one of the things we often see him do in these times of crisis. of course, issues relating to the jewish community have political overtones as well. the president has been speaking a lot about anti-semitism on the campaign trail, accusing democrats of that at times, obviously in a time of crisis, we will separate the politics of the moment from his initial response to this. the president continuing with his planned schedule going to green bay, wisconsin, tonight for a campaign rally. we've also seen in the past the president will sometimes talk about these real-world event in the arena style setting where there's a lot of frantic energy for his maga rallies, make america great again is the term they use. and we may see the president talk about this in some form today at least to elicit support and response from his supporters in respect of those who had been affected by what happened in san diego. it just gives you a sense of the

initial comments from the president and his intention to keep his planned schedule and, of course, he's got some of his senior aides with him so he can get briefings on any additional developments that come up. richard, i thought it was notable where he said we're doing heavy research. i have not real lird the president use that sort of description before in a case where we're getting incoming information about a suspect. perhaps that ties into some of what malcolm and you were talking about, about looking for any political ties or any motivations related to this suspect, perhaps the president is getting some early indications of that as well. richard? >> great to have you there, kelly o'donnell, white house correspondent for us. the very latest coming from the president on this day of unfortunate tragedy in california. thank you very much, kelly. i want to get to our msnbc contributor jim cavanaugh, who's also been watching this develop throughout the morning and afternoon there local time in california. lots of pieces of new information, right, jim, since you and i spoke an hour ago.

19-year-old suspect, an individual that pulls over, self-identifies to law enforcement. those are just two things that at least in my -- comparison of other tragedies like this, we don't see very often. >> right, richard, exactly. that's a great point. he wants to be caught. he's proud of his vulgar act. he is the shooting. he lives that hate. he's a guy who's been brainwashed or inculcated with some form of hate. probably white supremacist but we don't know for sure but he's been inculcated with some form of hate where he's starktitarge jewish people. this has gone on over the centuries and in law enforcement we have sadly worked it for many, many years. it's not new unfortunately. but it's ramped up now because having worked this all of my life, worked on these guys all my life, to see that torched had

much lit march in charlottesville last year mimicking a nuremberg rally, we have never seen anything like that since the klan was decimated back in the '60s post the civil rights act. so they were damp there. look we used to infiltrate the klan caverns when we knew they had bombs and machine guns. >> does that mean we cannot do that today? and i say we, real palestining you and those who are the experts and have the capabilities in part of the institutions that would prevent something like this from happening? that the capability is not there and maybe there is no possibility of really reaching that level of capability that you are talking about there, jim? >> well, the capability exists. it's the direction given from the top political leaders and to put all of the agencies into the fight in total and to understand that this threat is never going

to go away. it's been here for our lifetime. and we can he do it. look, the president has a lot of talk but he needs a little more action. he can convene the attorney general and heads of the major law enforcement agencies in washington. he's their boss. he can convene them and say, i want to do more on this. i want more infiltration where there's known criminal activity. i want it harder. i want it faster. i want it better. i want to ramp it up. i want your ideas how 20 do it. we would join these groups and put undercover atf guys in the group when we knew they had machine guns. we had marched with these groups and that's how we dismantled them. we got their plots and we got informants and charged their members and weakened them through the '70s and '80s. now, it could be ramped up again. this is could be a lone actor not with an organized group, and this is harder because we covered them and talked about

them and they're inspired by the web. so part of the thing i think the president should do is also incorporate your efforts with the digital companies facebook and youtube and twitter and the platforms that carry messages of hate. they're trying. they need to did more. they're making billions of dollars and this is killing our citizens not only in america but around the world. so you have to do more. whatever you're doing is not quite enough. you're making billions based on our freedoms yet people are being slaughter based on your platforms so everybody's got to step up. a lot of things continue happening, sadly we had a fatality but we didn't have a mass slaughter. the rabbi -- >> talk about that very point, you're wearing a special agent in charge atf hat on, is that his firearm, talk about the firearm. talk about what could have been based on what the development of the morning and how he was stocked.

it could have been much worse based on the firearm he had. >> it could have been much worse. but we don't know at this point was the ar-15 the weapon used in the shooting? we know he was apprehended with an ar-15 and it may very well have been a weapon. we also heard from one of the witnesses the rabbi heard the shot and didn't react. ar-15 is very loud if it's shot in a building. it would be hard not to react to that. some of these attackers will have multiple guns with them. long gun, remember, he's got to get it inside if in fact the shooting was in fact inside. he would have to wear a coat other jacket to smuggle it in. they can have short barrels and they smuggled with collapsible stocks. the rabbi, it will be interesting to see because we know the congregants stopped this guy, what would be interesting to see was the rabbi one of the people who actually grabbed the gun or tried to stop him and the reason he was so severely injured in the happened because he was in proximity to the gun. that's possible. we don't know for sure.

but the congregants and border patrol officer who fired on him, all of these people routed this guy away and then, of course, he called the highway patrol and said oh, by the way on the shooter, i hate -- whatever he said, i might have said i hate somebody or i did this for hate or whatever and then he surrenders like the coward that he is because, of course, he's afraid of getting shot. when the border patrol fires a round, he runs away like a scary cat he is, mr. big hate stuff. this is a sad case. i think we don't -- we don't name the guys much -- we might have to name him but -- >> i know where you're going with that because it's always that question, right, jim? based on what you developed here quickly, fame hungry in the way that this has progressed so far sf on t is often the question and concern. >> they crave infamy and they crave other acts.

but we all have to understand, newsman and journalists are going to report the guy's name. it's news. it's going to happen in the first 24 hours and nobody will be able to stop it in a free society and i'm not sure we should stop it at all in the first 24 hours of news. but after that, once we start referring to the shootings, i like to say the shooting was at this location and at this church or that mosque and the no always refer to the shooting based on the name and identity of the killer because it just parades his infamy on and on and on again. but we will not be able to suppress their identities for all time. >> understood. >> but it could be minimized. i think people have to understand journalists will report it in a free society. >> i brought it up from that point as well as to the point of what may be propelling this particular suspect, around that psychosis that led him or her to this situation in any of the cases that we've talked about in the past. i do want to get to one of the eyewitnesses. one of the witnesses on the ground, jim, who described very

early on what was seen there at the chabad the howway. >> your husband, how is he doing? >> he has high blood pressure and he was shaking and i was really worried about him. that is a shock. >> you're saying one woman and rabbi rabbi was shot? >> yes. >> can you tell me about cha bod. you said a lot of people don't have technology. how are they getting the word out? >> he use his phone, so they're not so religious that they cannot touch their phones, during shabbat you can touch, and so many people in that family, they don't know what's going on. i was lucky my husband called me

but i feel bad for the rest of the people they don't have communication and don't know what's happening. >> you're telling me the shooter shot rabbi and the woman and the rabbi continued to speak to his congregation? >> rabbi continued to speak to his congregation and my friend, she said, my husband said, she's gone and they tried to stop him leaving but they have to take care of her. >> have you heard anything from her family? >> no, no. >> there a very shaken eyewitness who reflected very early on about what she had seen. joining me live by phone now, brian levin, director for the center of the study of hate and creamism there at cal state-san bernardino. you're about an hour and a half north of poway. its a face you understand very, very well. brian, of what are some of the

mea immediate thoughts, not only because this is your neighborhood and i say that loosely because this is southland but the southland is a very large community. >> yes, and we just did a presentation in san diego. interestingly enough in 2018 most of the bigger california cities were up, san diego was slack and original baseline, san diego city not counting, this territory is county territory, but the region was stirred. interesting enough to rattle off a couple of interesting things, generally anti-semitic attacks for the most part if you go through over the quarter century, we have national data on this, has not involved a tremendous degree of physical violence. certainly it has but within the last couple of years, we've seen that change. interestingly as well -- >> how do you measure that, brian? how do you measure that? >> yes, well, we have some great

people working with us so to give you an example, jim nolan of west virginia university used to do data analytics for the fbi, he helps out out. we have another guy andrew thompson. and what we did was we put hate speech on the internet above, you know, super imposed it on a day-by-day, month-by-month clip on hate crimes. and we found a big increase, august of 2017, everybody talking about charles hill, that was the second worst month for hate crime then the better part of a decade. and what we saw last yee we saw an increase in white nationalists in far right homicides from 13 to 17 and they eclipsed into one homicide last year . >> that's a 30% increase if i do my rough math there, is that correct? >> again, what we do is only look at extremists who do

ideologically motivated attacks but interestingly we are now seeing fatal ones coming up like tree of life and now this. how do you see the change going on with the anti-semitic attacks, it's getting more fatal and unfortunately more common. one last thing, new york city last year, the majority of the hate crimes in new york last year, anti-semitic. in new york at least, hate crimes are up this year. l.a. so far, this year 2019, hate crimes down, but you never know until the end of the year and when we're going into a political season, not only do we see hate speech on the internet, anne thompson did great work for us but james nolan -- >> brian, quick question here, how have you found or what are some of the theories behind why ideology or change in ideology has led to more action, not only rhetorical action but also in this case leading to shootings as well as physical violence? >> great question.

i think there was several but let's look at one. let's look at this fellow's social media forensic footprint and that will tell us a lot. hate speech on the internet, it's been segregating, self-segregating to these platforms like gab and elsewhere where they have more freedom if you will to express vitriol. so we're seeing not only increase in regard to hate speech on the internet in the united states and europe as well but how it's manifested is now in a fragments social media universe. >> brian levin, stand by, malcolm nance stand by and jim cavanaugh. we're going to take a short break. we're looking at live pictures on the left-hand side in poway, california. this as they redirect traffic from a crime scene they're still looking into. this as the command center is working very hard to determine

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we have new news to share with you with our breaking news story out of poway, california. i want to go straight to nbc news reporter andrew for more breaking news on this saturday afternoon. >> about afternoon. law sources familiar with the investigation are saying the gunman who shot several people at the chabad synagogue this afternoon is identified as john ernest, 19 years old, from san diego. there's not a lot more people. we are still obviously looking at some of the things investigators are including social media posting which may provide some kind of a motive for the shooting but the

identification, john p. earnest, 19 from san diego. >> it's early as were saying to characterize who this suspect is. you did say if san diego. you did say they're looking at the social media footprint. are there some early reflections on what that footprint might be saying? >> well, when you look at kind of the involvement, and obviously at some point the san diego sheriff's department is the lead but we're working closely with the fbi and obviously there are two components to that. with federal authorities it's looking at exactly the social media profile and other evidence gathering as well as kind of the potential hate crime component. but it's looking in that direction from everything obviously that we have seen and kind of the stance that investigators are taking. we will obviously get more on that later in the afternoon.

>> as you know so well being an investigative reporter, andrew, you take in the information. you double, triple check it, careful about the summaries and generalizations that may be made that are coming from the information. that's what the investigators from law enforcement are doing and that's what we're doing as we get information here and what you're doing. andr andrew blanksteen, investigative reporter for nbc news, with the name of the suspect. we're just reporting that at the first time 31 minutes after the hour here on msnbc, nbc news identifying john earnest as the 19-year-old suspect shooter at the shooting at chabad, poway. live on the ground in poway, california, reporter ramon guilindo. i have been watching your reporting all morning and afternoon on this. if you will, tell us first what you know from the control center, what the command center

is doing right now because they're trying to figure out why this happened and what is the motive behind it? what are you hearing about that? >> that's right. right here this is still very much an active investigation at this chabad community center here in poway. police tell us there are still dozens of worshippers inside of the synagogue. they're asking them questions, collecting evidence like you mentioned, trying to figure out exactly what happened. that 19-year-old suspect, he is in custody. it doesn't appear like they are searching for any other suspects. the first confirmation we had of a fatality in this incident, we know that a woman was killed and three other people wounded. we got that from the mayor of poway, poway mayor vaus. he said this is being investigated as a hate crime, indicating that the gunman, the 19-year-old suspect, exclaimed something to the congregation. what he said exactly we don't

know at this time. but the mayor made it seem like that the suspect directly targeted this synagogue because they were practicing their jewish faith, which is the end of passover. people were here celebrating so the temple was filled with men, women and children. >> ramon, of course, one of the questions that you're asking because you're from the southland is why -- if he's from san diego -- did he choose to drive 20 minutes outside of wherever he lived to go to that specific location? don't know the answer right now. that's what the command center is trying to answer. i want to go back to where you started, ramon. you mentioned there are still potentially dozens inside there chabad community center as we're reading right off the sign on the outside of the center there. do you know how long that's going to be? and have you been able to hear from any of those who have finished the discussions with law enforcement and left so far,

and what they said are -- they're talking about? what have they said they've been asked when they're inside? >> sure. i will definitely get into that. i did speak to witnesses who were inside of the services while it was happening but as you can see behind me, we see more unmarked police vehicles. we see the fire department here, and there are dozens of people who are still inside. i did speak to one worshipper who talked a little bit about what happened, talked about just all of the fear and the commotion from several witnesses. they did tell me that one of the people who was in the hospital being treated is the rabbi of this congregation. many people told me that he had been shot in the hand and got into graphic nature of the severity of his injury. so besides the rabbi, there is another man who is being treated and an underage girl. but unfortunately, yes, one

woman did die in this. typically on a homicide, investigators are out here for several hours but a crime of this magnitude, and the fbi is here. that has turned into a federal investigation. >> right. >> so this small community of poway just north of san diego is going to feel this law enforcement presence for quite some time. >> i mean, ramon, by practice we're now seeing the second phase, right. this after the first responders are now leaving and now the investigative phase is now in full force. when you were speaking with those who are inside, were they able to describe to you, ramon, how the suspect entered, how the suspect then shot at the individuals that were then injured? any detail around how that entrypoint for the suspect was in terms of the scene? >> sure, from the people that were inside, obviously still very much in shock, unable to give complete details of

anything that happened. we actually were able to get more details from people who were outside of the synagogue, a man who lives just a block away from here told me he heard about six shots going pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, and then hearing a man's voice, just emotional distraught. couldn't hear what he was saying and then another round of shots, pang, pang, pan. now we know after talking to law enforcement an off-duty border patrol officer was here and able to shoot at the suspect. so he was able to hit the car and that helped police finally identify the suspect. as of right now, a lot of this congregation obviously are still in shock and a lot of them still inside telling investigators what they saw. >> ramon, thank you so much for stopping off to speak with us from knsd, our nbc affiliate, ramon galindo, who is there on the ground. thank you so much. i would like to go to michael ball bony, former new

york homeland security security adviser. you got more frfinformation fro our reporter on the ground. you had developments in the last 45 minutes from law enforcement. how do you put it together on what's happening inside now? as i was asking ramon, what's that back and forth investigators are doing with those who are unfortunately inside the chabad community center. >> so as we discussed many times beforehand, the tempo of the cadence of the investigation begins after the folks who have been injured and people cleared from the room so there's no safety issues, now they're going through and talking to people, what did they say? the social media footprint immediately being taken a look at. investigators are going to focus on things like it's six months to the day from the pittsburgh, ohio shooting of the tree of life. it is passover. there is the shootings -- the bombings and shooting in sri lanka last night, global event.

is that something that has played within the attacker's mindset? as you point out all the time, this is an alleged individual. so far we don't have a specific confirmation yet. but there is a name out there. but what's interesting, richard, is that after the tree of life shooting, the department of homeland security engaged jewish leaders across the entire community and as of april 9th, there was a nation tabletop that actually delved into what would happen if you had multiple shootings at a religious synagogue or other religious institutions, and the fbi talks about the fact that in the last year there have been 100 threats against religious institutions. obviously people very heightened, great awareness as to what's going on but this is such a difficult situation to predict and to prevent. >> brian levin may still be with us, michael, and i do want to go to brian, because, brian, as you listen to some of these statistics coming from michael,

this is something you focus on day to day there at cal state-san bernardino. and last you and i were talking is why is the ideology involving and why is the ideology involving in a way that allows people to move to action, actions of violence? >> yeah, a great question. a bunch of developments we're seeing, first of all, we're seeing folks get radicalized online and how they're getting radicalized online, look at the dha charleston shooter, who i will not mention, he got radicalized on the internet and went step by step from group people trying to mainstream hate. we've seen that. we've seen the affinity hate platts forms. as folks get booted off larger platforms, they go to echo chambers. but we see white nationals and conspiracy behind it and views

oftentimes are the biggest scapegoat. and one last quick thing, in the past we've seen increases in anti-semitic hate crime, almost always the worst months were around the great palestinian conflicts. now wee s see it around other thanks and they're becoming more fatal. and religion as a category, my last point but a big one, religion as a category always has been about 20%, about four times since we started keeping federal data. three were in the last three yierz and the other one a couple years before. we're seeing more concentration on religious hate crime. the second biggest that we saw in all of the groups we tracked last year of 2018 across many american cities, anti-semitism had the second biggest rate of increase. >> we're looking at pictures on the map of the lower side of california, on the lower right,

we are looking at pictures on the right side of those members of the chabad center attending today, still inside right now speaki speaking with law enforcement. upper right-hand corner, different vehicles arriving. as we hit the next phase of this investigation. brian, the thing is when we look at the lower right-hand map, that southern part of california is one of the most diverse places in america. you just have to look at the universities where you are at, where you do research and teaching there at cal state-san bernardino. i'm guessing you're in the plus 50% which are very common in places of study and education in southern california which reflects this community. one might say given its diversity, that we would not expect this. >> yes, that's a great point. but something that happened in california in 2014, as the

latino population continued plurality at over 38% and what we've seen as the hate movement here in california almost its own subculture. so we see violent folks who went to charlottesville, they're being charged with a group called r.a.m. and things like this. the bottom line is young people are generally much more tolerant but we have some of hate groups, particularly using social platforms, targeting young whites and disenfranchised and seeing social media to ensnare these people but once they commit a crime they often make statements on social media to justify it. >> unfortunately i think what it shows in the big brains like yourself and those like malcolm nance, jim cavanaugh and michael balboni, still today this can happen anywhere. we're going to take a short

break. breaking news coming out of southern california. one dead, three injured in a synagogue shooting in southern california. we are about four hours into this. stay with us. craftsmanship and y that have made the rx the leading luxury suv of all time. lease the 2019 rx 350 for $409 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. if ywhen you brush or floss, you don't have to choose between healthy gums and strong teeth. complete protection from parodontax has 8 designed benefits for healthy gums and strong teeth. complete protection from parodontax. bleech! aww! awww! ♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft for the win win.

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the call that there had been a shooting at one of his places of worship in what's a small town, if you will, 50,000 folks. we spoke with the mayor of poway, steve vaus, today whhe declared, when he heard for the first time this would be categorized as a hate crime. here's that conversation. >> bestky tell you at this point is we had four folks with gunshot wounds. we do have one fatality. the rabbi was shot in the hand. my understanding is none of the other injuries are life threatening. we are grateful to those in the congregation there that engaged the shooter and prevented this from being a much more horrific incident. and i need to tell you that the city of poway is 50,000 folks and all of the faith communities here are like family. just a week ago we had an interfaith gathering to find

common ground. so for this to happen only a week later at the end of passover, only a week after easter, is horrific and not at all indicative of the love and appreciation for different faith traditions we have in this community. >> and you are that gathering voice there in poway, mayor, as their leader and it sounds certainly that you have taken on that on the leadup to today, not only the faith community but most probably there in the city itself. can you give us a little more detail? what is new for us is there's a fatality. we have not heard about that. what can you tell us about that particular individual? >> i can only tell you that we have a fatality. i can also tell you that it was a height crime. and that will not stand. this community will come together, will put their arms around each other and we will be there for the families affected and be there in an ongoing

fashion, just like we are always are. >> so when you're listening to the witness as you move forward on this very hour, and i know you have a lot of information coming into your office at the moment, rabbi -- excuse my, mayor, the rab biep you said was shot in the hand, the witness was saying he continued to speak to all of the other individuals that are inside chabad of poway even though he may have been injured? >> that is my understanding. and i know the rabbi well. i was with him just a few weeks ago. this is a man of great faith and a man of great courage. and i'm so proud that he's part of our poway community. >> i'd imagine as you were saying earlier, mayor, the town of 50,000 and being so close, that you may -- and most likely know some of these individuals that are involved unfortunately that were injured and potentially even the fatality. >> i think there's some high

likelihood for that. but poway in many ways is kind of like a norman rockwell town. where he call ourselves a city and a country. that applies in every possible fashion. we will be there for one another, as long as it takes. and it sounds so trite after so many tragedies and so many places but our thoughts and prayers will continue to be with that congregation, with those injured, with the families, the individuals whose life was lost, we will be there for them. >> mayor, you did a hat tip there to some of the heroes that stopped the person with the gun, the suspect here. can you tell us a little bit more about how that happened or who those folks might be? >> no, i'm at the command center now and there will be a briefing coming up in the not-too-distant future. i want to give a shout out to all of the law enforcement agencies who have stepped up in this.

i have heard multiple times from the mayor of san diego, right next door to the city of poway, offering their full resources. and this community comes together. >> now, you're talking about the brave law enforcement at poway. how did they react? as you were speaking there with your chief as well as surrounding communities? >> they turn out and they turn out quickly. poway is proud of its reputation as the safest city in san diego county, one of the safest cities in the state of california. something like this will not sit well, but we have deputy sheriffs and police departments surrounding us that will step things up. we already dispatched teams to all the faith community houses of worship to make sure that no senseless copycat takes place. we're going to be there for everybody. >> mayor, which law enforcement

agencies helped you in reaction to the shooting? >> we had our sheriff's department on scene within minutes. san diego approximatpd was ther thereafter. we see atf law enforcement, works very well together in tragedies like this and they train for that and we appreciate it. >> there was the conversation there, mayor steve vaus of the town of poway who was sharing with us what he was going through trying to lead through the process of identifying who was the suspect. joining us by phone right now is democratic congressman from california and presidential candidate eric swalwell. thank you for taking time to speak with us. california may be a big state, but it's also a small state and i'm guessing that you have many connections there in the area of san diego and that you may have

spoken already with some of your fellow members from california. >> well, i'm wishing them strength and resolve right now as we pray for the victim we lost and the recovery of the person who was also -- the victims who were also shot. those parishioners, they went there this morning to pray and they left running for their lives. i don't think there's anyone in america who thinks that it should be that way any longer in america, but that is the case now for our houses of worship. it's a combination of the rise of hate groups in america and the continuation of unrestricted weaponry. we actually start to do something that. >> i was speaking with jonathan greenblat who's the ceo of the anti-defamation league. he was mentioning how he's working on it at a local level with those in poway but on a

national level a task force to try to understand the whys behind this and the hows behind this in terms of mitigating some of the extremist violence that is now, unfortunately, what every place of worship across the country has to worry about today. what's your thought on the national level about what needs to help the local level. >> on a national level a fire can only grow with oxygen. and so don't give it oxygen. a president should denounce white nationalists even when they praise you. the department of justice should also beef up its enforcement and ability to prosecute and treat this as domestic terrorism. and i believe our schools, at the earliest of ages we need to continue to teach about inclusiveness and intolerance of other religions.

but that takes leadership and we're lacking that right now. >> eric swalwell, democrat from california. thank you so much, representative, for your thoughts. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> back to malcolm nance. malcolm, we were just talking with the representative there about what can be done through the task force to help these localities, if you can hear me. what is the right balance there on the national, local level to mitigate some of the extremism we're seeing in all these touchdowtowns across the country? >> the types of activities are going to need national support, that is using information obtained by the fbi, the department of homeland security. infusing that into the joint terrorism task forces around the country so that what is not

actually, you know, by legislation domestic terrorism is not an actual crime that is violated in the united states. so they have to go after them using hate crime laws and other local legislation. but there's two components to it. that part is legislative. and other component is tactically where they will provide more police presence or provide information in briefings on how to harden some of these facilities. but then you're talking about the accessibility of them to their houses of worship, and you can't predict where it's going to happen. it could happen anywhere at any time in the most hardened facilities, there's a way to get in as we've seen with schools. this is an ideological battle that the administration is going to have to take seriously. the indications we're getting is there may have been an

ideological component based on white supremacy, then they're going to have to take it just as seriously as they take terrorism or threats from other ideologies. >> so great to have you, malcolm nance. jim kavanaugh, michael balboa. stand by. we're going to continue with your breaking news coverage here on msnbc. live pictures in the lower left-hand corner there inside the chabad of poway synagogue. there are still some parishioners inside right now. they must feel like this is an eternity, but they are there to try to help to piece together what happened, what happened in the 11:00 hour local time in california? we're going to dive into more of that and the suspect and potentially the motive behind what he did. short break. we'll be right back here with breaking news on msnbc. -we bought a house in a neighborhood with a lot of other young couples. then we noticed something...strange. oh, could you, uh, make me a burger? -poof -- you're a burger. [ laughter ] -everyone acts like their parents. -you have a tattoo. -yes.

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oh i love it. it's a great razor. it has that 'fence' in the middle. it gives a nice smooth shave. just stopping that irritation... that burn that i get is really life changing. it is a top of the hour and we're still covering breaking news coming out of california. it is 7:00 p.m. in manhattan,

but it is 4:00 in poway, california, just outside san diego, where a gunman opened fire in a synagogue earlier today. four people shot, one of them later dying. the city's mayor has declared the attack a hate crime. authorities say they have a suspect in custody and he is being questioned. sources familiar with the investigation tell nbc news the shooter is 19 year old john earnest, a resident of san diego. the president tweeted a thank you to the border patrol agent who stopped the shooter. his talents for law enforcement were not, mayor of poway steve vaus. >> this is not poway. the poway i know comes together as we did just a few weeks ago in an interfaith event.