stages of what they're calling an incident on the london bridge. the scene that you're seeing is not the london bridge. it's something called burrow market. it started on a small food market, stalls. it's turned into one of the most popular destinations for locals and tourists, alike, with literally hundreds of food stalls, restaurants, retail. it's just always a packed area of london. of course they have it blocked off now. but you can understand why if there was some sort of threatening incident, immediately there would be concerns because of just how dense it is always with foot traffic, with people there. let's go back to erin, who is -- are you on the scene yet? are you heading toward the scene, erin mclaughlin? >> i was just talking to a police officer there. i'm just passing the police cordon. they're trying to clear this area as best they can from

people on the streets, as well as traffic. it's a very heavy populated area, of course, of london. london bridge is an iconic landmark within the city. it's very unusual to see anything like this take place in broad daylight. i'm currently looking at the police cordon. police officers are horseback. i see fire trucks and police vans. what we know in terms of what has unfolded here, we saw video posted to social media. one chilling video shows a scuffle on the ground that happened at the bridge area. a shot was fired, presumably by the police, who had their guns raised. and a man seemingly a passerby, just walking off with what appears to be the suspect's knife. police saying they responded to

the incident at 1:58 in the afternoon. they've made one arrest. that there was a stabbing reported in the area. a number injured as you can hear there, perhaps the police now on horseback trying to clear the area. again, it's a very populated part of london. >> give us a little bit of the logistics here, just so people who haven't been there can understand the london bridgetself. don't want folks who may not be familiar to confuse it. it is an iconic landmark, the london bridge there. some people who have been to the east coast of the united states and know the area around the brooklyn bridge and what we call the area underneath the brooklyn bridge, it's kind of similar to that, in that it's an area that was once less populated, but has become very, very popular. i go to the burrough market area pretty much ever time i go to

london, and what i've noticed is there's almost not a time where that area is not packed wall to wall with people. >> that's exactly what i'm seeing now. there are a lot of people out on the street. many of them curious to see exactly what's going on. again, this is a very unusual incident to take place here in london and i think it's clear from the response that i'm seeing, the large security cordon, the fire trucks, the police van, that authorities at this point are taking no chances. this is what i would call a gold standard response from the london police. i've seen in the past from the terror attacks, other attacks in the past, when there is a hint of a possibility of terror as a motive, police have a play book that they follow to the letter. they tend to like to overreact and assess the facts and establish motive later. and at this point i think motive is very much at the heart of the

investigation, what led to this incident on london bridge, that prompted a police officer to feel compelled, according to videos posted on social media, to fire his gun, again at the heart of this investigation, which very clearly to me in the scene that i see before me, is continuing. >> i want to release you for just a couple of minutes. i know you've had some police officers nearby and i want to let you have a few minutes to do some reporting. i want to cling in clint watts, who works at the george washington university. one of the things that we know about big cities like new york and london, many of them around the world, is that they have become extremely well trained and extremely good at responding to incidents that they see as a threat. >> yeah, you can see that in this case of london. they were very quick to get there, it seems, based on the video. there was some sort of an incident, they were already at the bridge. and based on the footage, they

had responded with weapons. this is london. not every law enforcement officer is carrying a weapon there. they call in squads to handle those sorts of incidents. and what is they clear, they're taking this as a major incident. they've secured two areas. they seem to be checking and going through in a very deliberate way. when you see this going on, we always tend to wonder is this part of a terrorist act. and so if that is the case, i'm sure that's what we're trying to figure out now. is this a criminal act that occurred, terrorism. we've seen a lot of inspired islamic state or supporters over the year have knife attacks. it usually comes down to one of two types. they can't access weapons so they try to do something with a truck or vehicle or a knife-style attack. so i'm sure law enforcement are trying to parse out is this part of terrorism or crime.

and if it is part of terrorism, then they always want to start reacting strongly, because could there be copycats or accomplices, could there be other people in the area they want to detain or question or try to move on to prevent any future sprviolence. i'm sure they're trying to make sure the area is secure and move aggressively on any potential leads. >> you may be more familiar with the terminology than i am. we're just being told that london ambulance officials are calling this a major incident. i don't know what that means, if there was a major response in terms of the number of people or if it's a major incident in terms of the number of people who may have been hurt. >> what's not clear from the siddio is you see one sufficiently with a single individual on the bridge but you don't know if there were other incidents of violence leading up to that. if there was a stabbing spree, which we've seen in other attacks, not just in london and europe, but even around the world in terms of extremists. so that makes you wonder is this

more of a terrorism angle that they're looking at. if it's a major incident it could mean more than one casualty or more than one person has been wounded and they're trying to deal with that situation. and that seems like that could be the case here. >> that moment that you mentioned, the scuffle, we have that on tape. i just want to tell people that this will stop before he's shot. let's just take a look for a moment. and if you want to sort of follow along with us here, clint. >> yeah, what's really strange with this incident is that you see law enforcement eventually trying to remove someone from that scuffle, and then what appears to be the shooting. it's a little bit difficult to understand, seemed to occur after they removed the individual. so it's almost as if the assailant was attacking someone and the person being attacked was removed from the situation and then there was some sort of a shooting there. it's a little confusing to understand. but it seems like the person that was doing the attacking was very aggressive and law enforcement in europe, they are

very rarely carrying weapons, so they call out the squads to actually respond. and they took action very quickly, which means that they probably had some sort of inclination what that individual was about to respond in that way. and it's a rather bizarre episode because there were so many people on the bridge filming this incident. you probably could see three or four different videos. this one here you see the entire group is surrounded and the shooting incident happens at the end, which is very strange. that's not what you might normally see in a law enforcement situation. >> jim cavanaugh, as you watch this footage, what did you think? >> it looks like some passersby maybe were in a fight with an attacker or you could have two groups fighting or you could have citizens intervening in an assault. like clint says, motive unknown. i've been to london and worked with the metropolitan police. i've spent a lot of time with them there and studied their violent attacks and firearms

related attacks with atf. and just the way assaults occur and terrorist bombings and all of the things they've dealt with in firearms related matters, they have a lot of knife attacks and sharp-edged instruments attacks in england as a whole. much more than we're used to in the united states. we have more prevalence of firearms, they do not. their firearms laws are very strict. so there's a lot of knife attacks. police officers are often attacked with knives, machetes, axes. and it's a weapon of choice. and also as clint said, terrorists have used that weapon as well as firearms, vehicles, bombs. so we don't quite know, chris, how it started. and we do know that all of the bridges in london, as you point out, clearly this is not tower bridge or westminster bridge, this is london bridge. and the thames has a series of bridges in downtown london all

around. it's an urban area with a river, you know, deeply in the middle from olden times. so there's plenty of bridges there. this is one london bridge. and as you pointed out, the market, which is a popular area for terrorists and locals for all kinds of shopping, is there as well. so it looks like the police -- there's a lot of armed police in the metropolitan police near the tourist sites. >> obviously they've already secured the scene, because as you say, there's a presence there anyway. it's a heavily traversed area. but in terms of finding out what this is, and always in the early minutes when something like this happens, you know, people don't know if it's anything on one hand from a domestic or somebody who has mental health issues, all the way up to terrorism. what are they doing right now, jim, to figure that out? >> yeah, they're going -- here's the simple thing. we're in a high-tech world, but

it's all police work. it's shoe leather on the pavement. we go right to the assailant and take out his wallet and see who he is and start working it back as quick as you can back to his residence, his family, neighbors, associates, his police record. and that's all spun up right now. met troe -- they're looking ought aat all of the units, who is this guy. and then also the witnesses. the witnesses are key. what was happening? was it a fight between two men? was it something over some local dispute? was it yelling things, what some terrorist might yell? hate affiliated speech or claiming some other affiliation. we could hear all that from witnesses. so that's what they're doing right now.

detectives are heavy and of course they've got to secure the area, because could he have an associate or could there be somebody else involved. those are all questions that the police don't know at the moment. >> joel reuben is with us as well. he's former district secretary of state. a lot of americans live there and visit there. what would be happening on the u.s. side when something like this happens? >> chris, right now what the state department would do is issue a public statement, an advisory about whether or not there's a danger in a certain area, and to warn american citizens there. and frankly, this also speaks to a bigger issue about the fact if it's confirmed it's a terrorist act that the fight against terrorism is not over. so for the state department this is where people get called into action in headquarters in particular, across different bureaus to make sure that any engagements that could be identified potentially, be it syria, in iraq, as we're watching right now, afghanistan, are there any connections that they need to make? are the embassies speaking to their counterparts?

is there a global angle to this as well? that needs to feed into the system for the decisionmakers. >> we should point out that president trump is just back from his unannounced visit to afghanistan, but presumably, if he hasn't been already, he will be updated wherever there is an incident like this. particularly, again, in a place like london where this can be a heavy concentration of americans living and visiting there. he would vet updated on the very latest information on what they think is exactly happening. clint watts, we're watching -- this is the other thing that happens in situations like this. it's become a way for people to record things for social media, which obviously complicates things for officials who have to cordon off the scene, who want to keep people back. i don't think we've gotten it all clear here, even though we saw the one man being subdued. tell us a little bit about the logistics of something like this kind of combining those two

things, about securing the area, making sure that everybody who, instead of staying away from the scene as the state department might say, want to go to the scene along with the investigation. >> yeah, what's interesting about london is there's probably no city in the world -- well, with the exception of maybe a few now that we know about in china and other places in asia that has more cc tv cameras that are placed in and around these areas. so while we do see social media shots, many of them taken immediately after the fact or when they see someone responding, london has a remarkable ability in terms of their law enforcement to look at almost any spot in london and see what's going on at any given time. >> they've done that already then? >> they probably already have a good understanding of the situation as it played out and are probably just trying to follow up on leads and evidence right at the immediate time. >> i want to go back to london. erin mclaughlin has gotten in front of the camera for us. give us the latest on what

you're seeing and hearing there. >> reporter: -- central london, and just over that way you can see armed officers and police dogs. and what they've been doing is going up and down this street, clearing the area. you can see there over that way, police officers on horseback. and they've been clearing out this entire area of traffic and pedestrians. just over that way is london bridge where the incident in question took place. and just that way you can see is an overground train station. you can see the christmas trees in the window. people here lining the street and looking at the scene unfold. an incredible police presence and dogs sweeping this area.

why? we do not know. what this is is a sort of textbook response on the part of metropolitan police when they suspect an attack. we do not know the motive. we do not know the circumstances behind what unfolded just a few blocks that way on london bridge. but authorities very clearly are taking no chances in all of this. when they suspect the possibility of even terror, this is their response. it's called a gold standard response. they spare absolutely no expense. and that's what we're seeing right now as they try to clear and secure this area, a very busy part of central london. >> erin mclaughlin, thank you very much. i'm just also seeing that sky news, which is a major provider there, is saying at least one person was killed in this incident. nbc news has not been able to confirm that. we are also flooding the scene

and getting our crews and reporters there. we're going to take a quick break and keep your panel here. we have some of the best people to understand all this stuff with us and we'll be back after a short break with the very latest from london. stay with us on msnbc. doug with this key to the city. [ applause ] it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. and now we need to get back to work. [ applause and band playing ] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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[ dramatic music ]ing ] ahhhh! -ahhhh! elliott. you came back! there is a major response number london right now to an incident that involved at least one man with a knife, and what you're looking at is the area around london bridge, one of the most iconic areas over the

thames in london and a big area beneath it, a market filled with food shops and restaurants and is a very heavy pedestrian area in london. sky news in london, we have not confirmed this, but sky news is reporting at least one person was killed in the incident. what we do already have is some video from the scene and we'll show it to you, of a man being taken down on london bridge. but we don't know how this started, what might have precipitated it, or what exactly is going on right now, except that there is a major investigation that is going on. we continue to have jim cavanaugh with us, joel rubin, clint watts. clint, i'm going to assume that when you have something like this and until we know what the motivating factor is, does the possibility still exist that this might be a terrorist attack, that in addition to this what we call the gold standard response that we heard from erin

mclaw enforceme mclaughlin, u.s. intelligence might be involved as well? >> if they think this is more than a criminal act or a stabbing -- as jim mentioned stabbings are more common in the uk as opposed to the united states, but if they've got any hint that this was tied to terrorism, as soon as they have an actual identity for that individual or maybe it's someone they already knew about, they're going to run the databases to see if there's any connection. and the u.s. would quickly come in as an intelligence partner to provide additional information. i think the other part, if this is tied to terrorism, which is why there's such an incredible response right now, is they want to see are there any copycats or other people involved in this. remember, london is the place -- and part of the reason they have this gold standard response, 7/7/2005, they had multiple locations that were attacked simultaneously. they've seen this pattern before, which is why they have an overwhelming response. they want to move very quickly,

should this not be an isolated incident. they're trying to make sure that doesn't happen. >> we were talking about this a little earlier, jim cavanaugh, about what they would be doing now to determine who this person is, what the motivation might have been, and of course most critically whether or not he is a lone actor or there might be other things that are going on. but let's say he doesn't have a driver's license in his pocket. what is the technology now and what is the ability to quickly identify someone and understand who they might be, what their background might be, how quickly could they respond, for example, to his home, to people who would know him? >> you know, very fast, chris. there's no -- if there's no identification on the person, we would roll the finger prints as quickly as we could right there on the scene, get the latent lifts and see if we can identify them that way. facial recognizing, we would get his photograph and get -- all of this can be done instantaneously

now with our technology. we used to have to do that a little slower in the old days, but we can do it fast now. finger prints are rolled, face is checked, witnesses are talked to. and it's quickly -- you know, he won't be a mystery man. they'll find out who he is fairly quickly and that will roll into the leads you described, his house and neighbors, associates, et cetera. i think they did get report of a bomb there, which is not unusual. any kind of a major police response. that can come from a false report or it can come from a real bomb, or just somebody thinking they saw something, a package or something. and i think some of this response that we're seeing is not only the knife attack and the shooting, but also a response to a suspicious package or bomb. so they have to deal with all of those things. none of that is unusual, though. and still, this may not be terrorism. we just don't know how it

originated. and as we talked, england has a lot of knife attacks. and you could have a dispute, you could have two people fighting that spills out and then a stabbing, or you could have somebody on a homicidal spree that's not necessarily terrorism either. it could be a lot of things as yet. the clear thing from erin's reporting and from the live feed you're showing, chris, is the response of the metropolitan police. what they have is what they call a specialist firearms command, and those officers are armed. they call them sco-19. they've changed the name over the years. but those units, 019, they have guns in their cars locked in boxes. they have rifles you saw the officers had and they're deployed at specific places thar under high risk, real close to those places so they can make response. and of course central london all

up and down this area, has a lot of sc-019 officers armed that can come in and deal with any kind of terrorist situation or criminal situation. >> so what we're looking at -- and again, as you point out and we can all see from looking at this feed, jim, it looks like something major, but that does not mean it's something major. it could be we just don't know yet that we have everyone involved. we are still making sure that we can say to people it's okay. so you shouldn't look at this and necessarily make any assumptions about it? >> no, that's right, chris. and you know, you've covered so many of these things on the ground and i remember you doing it in paris and all over the country in our attacks, and you know how they develop so quickly and they get spun up. of course, the police are used to it. we're watching the feed. but let's just say, you know, a stabbing and police killing a man on a major urban bridge, is

going to be big news anywhere. and this is, you know, partly because of the location. if this happened in a back alley in any city in the world, a person is stabbed and the police kill a man, it's not even on the news. so a lot of this we're dealing with here is location, central london, on a bridge which has faced attacks before. so we're all trying to assess it and see. and that's a good thing. we need the world to see, we need the police to know, we need our intelligence leaders to know and everybody to be spun up. and if it turns out to be something smaller than a terrorist attack, then the law enforcement will deal with that as well. >> let me just interrupt you for a second, because we have at least the first official information that we're getting. this comes from the metropolitan police on twitter. at this stage is circumstances

relating to the incident at london bridge remain unclear, remain unclear. they also said from metropolitan police one man shot by police as a precaution, they're responding to the incident as though it is terror related, clint. >> yeah, it seems that they're staying on this. i'm sure what they're trying to sort out is all of the incidents that led up to it -- remember, they're going to be going back through digital feeds. what we're seeing is probably the end of the incident. and what's remarkable from the footage is how citizens of london responded to this in trying to actually slow down the perpetrator, respond to this incident themselves until law enforcement can get there. so i imagine at this point they're trying to find out what was the center of this attack, what was the target of it. did this person move to this bridge? and if so, was anyone else involved, are there any other potential things that are there?

so jim talked about there was initial reports of maybe a bomb. that seems to probably be a false report. but at the same point, that wouldn't be unusual to have multiple attackers or to have some sort of other locations. and so law enforcement would want to check out all of those leads, make sure that the entire area is secure and been cleared. they've brought in some dogs as we heard from our reporter on the ground. so with erin there, you can see this massive response. they're trying to clear it and i have to say one of the things that london is, they are able to return their city back to normal operations fairly quickly. and so if they're still there, they're still sealing this off, this would seem to indicate they think it's a much bigger incident than one person and a stabbing. >> we're bringing you back as the investigation continues and they're trying to make sure the scene is secure, let's go back to erin mclaughlin because it's been a little bit since we talked to her. what are you seeing and hearing from where you are right now,

erin, in the last 10 or 15 minutes since we spoke? >> reporter: chris, at the moment they're just clearing the area for emergency vehicles, now moving in the opposite direction of the bridge. this area, though, continues to remain on lockdown. we watched as one woman came up and asked a police officer if she could go into her shop, they responded no. the shops have been thoroughly evacuated. police are taking no chances. westminster police tweeting as much, saying they are treating this as though it is a terror incident, taking every precaution. though at this point, that is not confirmed. very reminiscent, actually, of an incident that happened about a year ago outside westminster. a car rammed into a side of the road and was apprehended by

poli police. at that point, again the motive was unclear. but police not taking chances and blocking off the entire area. it's a similar response that we're seeing here outside london bridge. unclear when this area will return to business as usual. at this point you can see police on horseback just over there. right over there is a major overground rail station. people lining the street and watching as the drama unfolds. earlier we watched as a specialist police unit went down this entire avenue with dogs making sure everything was secure. but at the moment, things seem to be calming down here just a couple of blocks from london bridge. >> erin, thank you for that. again, just to update you if you're joining us, shots were fired in central london today. they were responding, police, to a stabbing incident, a major response, what was called a major response as well. a major incident by london ambulance officials. let me bring in nbc's bill neely

who is on the south side now of the london bridge and knows this area extraordinarily well. what can you tell us? >> reporter: we're just being moved along by police who appear anxious. it's difficult to know whether this incident is over. a lot of members of the public have just been sprinting after police cleared this area. obviously there's a lot of nervousness here, because this incident happened very, very close to the market where two years ago there was a horrific stabbing incident with a lot of people killed, and of course these incidents don't just end on the first incident, as it were. as we know in the past from terrorist acts in paris and brussels and elsewhere, sometimes they come in twos and in the case of paris, of course, the attack, there were four separate crime scenes. now, i'm not saying this is a terror incident.

we simply don't know that at the moment. but the police are confirming that they did fire shots and that there is -- there are a number of people injured. in fact, nbc news has just spoken to one eyewitness who said he heard eight shots at least, eight shots. again, can't confirm that, but that is what one eyewitness has told us. and he then saw people running off a bus in panic. what the police are saying as we've been reporting, is that at 1:58 in the afternoon we were call -- they were called to a stabbing at a building near london bridge. one man has been arrested and a number of people have been injured. we've had various reports of casualties. one report says five people were injured, some seriously. another report is saying that one person has died. nbc news cannot confirm any of those reports.

but this is clearly -- well, what the emergency services are calling a major incident here at london bridge. >> let me ask you a little bit about that, bill, because you know the city so well and you know what happens when there are incidents like this. and you can take little bits and pieces from different things that happen. we certainly are seeing the video, which you can't see. but we've seen -- right now we're looking at police officers on horseback, we have seen a lot of them on foot. we have seen ambulances being moved into the scene. we've seened the areas that are cordoned off. the british plans port police has closed nearby london bridge station, one of the busiest transit hubs in all of london. so in terms of what you're seeing and the kind of response it is, just give us a sense of your sense of the incident. >> reporter: yeah, well, i tried to get off at london bridge station and it was closed. i am several hundred yards from

where the incident happened. but i can see, oh, up to a dozen emergency vehicles. there are police in vests, dozens of them, actually in the streets around here. i think they are treating this with an abundance of caution, security after an incident like this is of course paramount. and as i said, you know, it has ecos of that horrific attack in 2017 when, you know, so many people were stabbed and killed. >> yeah, six people killed in that incident. >> reporter: correct. so clearly we have a number of casualties here. people are talking of five people injured, some of them seriously. and the video that i have seen appears to show people tackling a man on a bridge. one eyewitness says the man had

a knife in his hand. another video showing police pulling people off the man before shots were fired by one officer. that is flooding social media at the moment. i wasn't there and i certainly can't confirm that. and police aren't confirming that. but as ever, with iphones and all sorts of recording devices, people are able to create -- as i say, it does appear to be over, or at least contained, at the moment. but with incidents like this, you simply never can tell and the police are acting appropriately. in fact, we're being pushed back further along this road now by police officers, some of them armed. >> bill, you can weigh in on this and any of our panelists can join in this part of the conversation as well.

i'll start with you, bill neely. when we've had incidents like this, whether it was a bomb threat or an actual bomb or a shooting, we've seen different approaches, one of which is get things back to normal as quickly as possible. once they give the all clear, they want to restore business, they want to restore normal see, let people get back in their shops, that kind of thing. if police are confident that they have indeed secured the scene, in your experience there, bill, how quickly would they try to get back to, for lack of a better term, business as usual? >> well, i think london has a long, long history of terror incidents, if indeed that is what this is. and yes, the instinct is, first of all, secure the crime scene. there will need to be -- it's a long investigation of this, and as i'm speaking there are still police vehicles. you'll hear one of them passing

right now. still police vehicles arriving at the scene and there's a helicopter hovering overhead. but yes, within a number of hours they will want to reopen. as you said, london bridge extremely busy commuter station. this area -- i'm standing just a couple of hundred yards from the biggest commercial -- well, it's the biggest building in europe and it is close to the financial hub of london, one of the great financial cities in the world. so they will want to get back to normal as quickly as possible. >> and we want to take a break. jim cavanaugh, i want to let you weigh in on that quickly, because we are less than two hours into this incident. if you have anything to add to what bill neely had to say. >> it's just great reporting and he's right there on the scene. i've been watching the video feed over and over of the police shooting right at the instant of

death. and it appears there's a citizen on top of the assailant and the police officers are trying to pull the citizen off. and as they do pull him off, his back is covered with blood. the assailant, who is on the bottom is all dressed in black and he apparently tries to rise up as if to maybe jump up and follow the person they just pulled off. and then the shot drops him. so it looks like there's possibly a citizen, a plain clothes citizen on top of an assailant all dressed in black. they're fighting. obviously from reporting, he has a knife. and the police actually physically pull the man off. he's bloody in the lower back. you can see his skin and the blood. and then the assailant rises up and he's instantly shot by the police. that's what i watched on the video a number of times. >> we appreciate that, because it is very small sort of toward the back of our screen as we watch it. we're going to take a quick break and be back with more coverage of this breaking news from london right after this.

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a large area of central london is shut down right now, as is london bridge, where there was an incident less than two hours ago. police opening fire, responding to what had been a stabbing near that very, very busy part of central london. there you see people on the streets. but the police presence has been extremely her extremely heavy. the response was quick, it was

broad. a major incident by the standard of the ambulance corps there. and on the phone now is brian dillon, the former head of scotland yard specialist firearms command. from what you've seen, from what you've heard, give me your take on this incident we're seeing in central london right now. >> i think it was a swift and effective response to an unfolding incident that is taking place right in the heart of the capitol. the emergency has a very strong set of contingency plans just in case of an incident that gives call for concern of what exactly is the underlying motive. we're also at the moment trying to understand what's taken place, but for now it's a serious incident. they appear to have it under control. i imagine they'll enact the full emergency procedures across and cord nature the response from the authorities. >> so again, we're less than two hours, we're coming up on two hours, maybe an hour and 50 since this incident occurred.

where would you expect the investigation to be at this point, and what is their priority moving forward right now? >> well, the priority in the first stages of an incident are to ensure whatever action has taken place is fully contained. so is what happened an isolated incident or are there any other outbreaks now or in the immediate future likely to take place. so that would involve understanding who the individual is that the police have detained, what the capacity and kpapability is and any other associates, and making sure that any ear eyewitnesses and evidence be digital or physical evidence to understand what exactly has taken place today. >> one on the things we know happens in situations like this is you're looking to see where your leadership is. the prime minister, we are told, boris johnson is back at ten

downing street. we're also told that nypd is monitoring this situation closely. in a situation like this, brian, how close is the coordination between scotland yard, between intelligence in the uk and places like the united states and other partners? >> it's very close, as you would imagine. it's important for ally countries to coordinate. i think at the moment what the colleagues in new york could be doing is probably wanting to monitor exactly what is happening. everybody is very conscious of not treading on anybody's toes when they're trying to understand what is taking place. so there will be an expectation to receive briefings and updates as the authorities over here get a clearer picture of what is taking place. and i would imagine from the us perspective, the colleagues over there putting in place measures

to safeguard communities in the event that this is an incident that perhaps spreads beyond what at the moment is, we must remember, a contained and isolated incident just taking place in london. >> there are differences that we were talking about before you came on the phone, brian, differences between the united states where we often see these kinds of incidents involving guns or explosives, as opposed to the number of stabbings that are far more common in the uk. what would have been the response the moment that officials knew that this was going on? who would have responded, what kind of training did they have? give us a sense of how london responds to this. we know that back in 2017 london bridge was the scene of a terror attack where six people were killed. >> well, london, like the rest of the uk that has a large number of very trained and armed very response officers. and they're not just there and

beyond, they're given a high level of training in order to work in concert with their colleagues to respond rapidly to any incident that takes place and communicate with their colleagues and have a command structure in order to identify, locate and neutralize whatever threat is presented. so the key thing isn't necessarily is there a firearm involved, it's what is the threat and any potential lethal threat chbd threat which can be from vehicles or any other objects, and engage very swiftly in order to protect the public. >> clint watts, homeland security is your area of expertise here. and very quickly, when you have an incident in a major city like this, there are alerts that go out around the globe. >> that's right. it's so different from 20 years

ago when the worbecause the woro interconnected. you want to narrow it down quickly and figure out what the motive watt, what's still not clear is what happened at the market. even from what i've been reading in social media -- >> people were fleeing the scene. we know that. bill neely, i don't know if you've had a chance to talk to any police or get any additional information, but it is a little bit unclear -- we saw the incident obviously that took place on the bridge itself, but do we know the unrest at the market was because police heard gunshots, because it is very close there? do we know exactly what happened at the market? is bill neely -- >> sorry, it's bill neely here. apologies. i didn't realize you were addressing that question to me. no, the latest i've got is that -- and you may already have this, but the metropolitan

police here, the anti-terror police here are saying this isn't is being treated as if it were a terror incident. now, i assume that means that the strong suspicion is that it was a terror incident. at the minute, as we've been reporting, one man has been arrested. the police are simply saying a number of people have been injured. we believe at least five people have been injured. and there are a lot of details about this that we're not clear. for example, there is a very large white truck jackknifed across two lanes of london bridge. we're not quite sure what part that plays in this incident. what i can tell you is just even in the last few minutes, more police reinforcements have screamed in with their sirens wailing. if this incident is over, and i would stress we don't know that, the police certainly aren't treating it as if it's over.

they are concerned, as we all have been over the last decade, about secondary attacks. so a first attack might happen. it might draw the police and the public into an area, and then a second incident happen. so the police are acting here at london bridge with an abundance of caution because at the moment it would seem there is just one attacker, but again, that's no guarantee that there aren't others waiting in the wings. we have no proof of that. nbc news cannot confirm that there is any other person involved in this other than the man who has been shot. but obviously, as far as the police are concerned, they have to treat this as if it's a possible first in a series. they have flooded this area with police, armed police, police vehicles, the helicopters are still circling above me as i

speak. >> we're seeing, bill, the initial call was to borough market. what i'm trying to figure out is the final -- what may or may not have been the end, the scene of the altercation on the bridge and police coming in, was what happened in borough market, did it all start there, or was that just a reaction by people who heard gunshots? do we know exactly what transpired in borough market? >> reporter: not yet. borough market and london bridge are very close to one another. we shouldn't think of them as separate places. they're within a couple of hundred yards of each other. the police statement was initially at 1:58 they were called to a stabbing at a building or a premises, as they called it, near london bridge. so in and around borough market. >> i want to bring in tom swoe berg, former adviser to theresa

may. do you have any late information or analysis you can shed light on, what bill neely was observing, more police reenforcement coming in, a massive police cordon around that area in central london? >> -- cannon street station which is not too far from london bridge -- something else that they are concerned about and trying to deal with. to be frank, it takes my mind back to 2017 during the election of 2017 when there were several terrorist attacks, one at manchester -- killed too many people and at london bridge

where there was an incident there as well. -- boris johnson -- this particular incident -- the terror threat has been downgraded. the videos that we see, all the eyewitness, it looks, feels, sounds like what could be a terrorist attack. >> so i guess bottom line question is should we read much, tom, into the fact that reenforcements are being brought in, or could it be an abundance of caution, is that automatically a signal that there is an increased concern about what might still be to

come or the threat that is posed? >> it's really hard to say, and we don't want to unnecessarily worry people, to be honest. i think based on the london bridge incident in 2017, they pushed people back, keeping people away from the area. police are taking no chances whatsoever. so we don't yet know -- as i say, the terror threat level has been downgraded. [ inaudible ]. in response to the bridge attack in 2017, people are understanding their reaction to

what the police are doing, what the security forces know, and based on where we are right now, it may well be that the security -- who it was that was involved and what else might be coming afterwards. learning from 2017 and making sure the area around [ inaudible ]. >> very quickly, what we know right now is central london is largely at a standstill. there was a bit of a panic set off. there are multiple witnesses and video from people who were around borough market and london bridge just a couple hours ago. police opening fire on the bridge. they've been responding to a stabbing right near that very, very busy part of central london. we'll take a quick break and continue to follow this breaking news here on msnbc. stay with us. on msnbc stay with us o tell you that

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we are back live with an ongoing situation in the area around london bridge, central london at a standstill. a massive response by police to what was a stabbing incident, shots fired. the man subdued, but the question that remains at this hour, could this be terror related? that's going to do it for me. i'm chris jansing.