deceased, in custody, or located, this is a positive sign. they would not be bringing school buses here in this volume if there was any danger at all. swat would not allow it. this means they know it is safe, they can bring the children out, and bring them to the family reunification center. >> jim, we have covered enough of these together. we do not see law enforcement frantically running toward the school or frantically running from the school either. again, at this opponent the school is still reportedly on lock down amid this active shooter investigation, but the signs are right now that it is somewhat under control. i want to bring in retired seattle police chief and msnbc law enforcement analyst carmen best now.

thank you for your time, chief. i know you just are getting plugged in here -- >> oh, can you hear me okay? craig melvin. >> yes, are you talking to me, craig, i can hear you. >> yes, and we're live on msnbc right now. let me start with what do you make of what we're seeing unfold so far and the facts as we know them at this hour? just after noon? obviously another tragic match shooting that we're experiencing here. it is become an epidemic this country. it's very sad to see. i know there are multiple casualties. details will variety as they come out. the fact that there is a lot of buses there, they're moeing the

unaffected victims out to a reunification point, these are always very dynamic very scary, and there could be potential traps in the bidding depending on what the shooter had in mind. that could be a concern, trying to extracated everyone safely. i'm not sure if the suspect is in custody yet or what happened, but it looks like a significant police presence. >> you're right, we don't know that. in situations like this the information changes fairly quickly from one moment to the next. it is just after the top of the hour, there in arlington, texas.

according to the mayor, two people have been shot, injured, in a school shooting there. as you can see quite the substantial law enforcement presence. a number of school buses started showing up about 10 minutes ago. carey sanders is joining us from florida. you're not that far, i understand, from parkland, the site of one of the worst school shootings in the history of this country. what can you tell us about what you're seeing play out in arlington? >> parents right now that are anxious. they would like to reunite, but what was learned is the shooting that took place here is having

the kids in a lock down, held in classrooms, there is also a lock down around the classrooms, provides them a safety security area they need. the urgency to get the children out of the classroom is was there only one person that was the active shooter. as we look at the high school here we see it is a very ambition high school here at the independent school district here. so there is a tremendous number of questions unanswered. as law enforcement moves through, that is when they will begin to reunite kids with their parents. we know the local officials urged parents to step away from the area to what will be a

reunification area and it is very difficult and it is hard for parents to listen to that. but following the procedures often lead to the most order in what is chaos >> carey as you're reporting right there. more information coming in from the reporter on the scene there. this is on the right side of the screen, this is a scene from earlier, this was the scene a short time ago as you see the law enforcement officers, guns drawn, heading in to that school there. i want to get to this report here. a reporter there talking to

parents in touch with their kids. one mom saying she just wants to hug her child. you see the buses lined up to take students to the reyupification center that has been set up. we are also now starting to see more people outside timberview high school. the school is on lock down, that means students and staff locked in classrooms. i can tell you unfortunately they're well prepared because of autoof the drills they have now. my son who was just in first grade had one yesterday at his elementary school. these students are likely adequately prepared for something like this? >> unfortunately i think it is true. people, citizens are prepared,

students are well prepared to absorb this service. they are running, hiding, and fighting quickly. we had a man go into memphis last week. he wounded 14 people. he killed someone, he killed himself, and because of the resons of the citizens to immediately respond, you know, get it in your mind that when you hear that, it's not a fire cracker, get away, run, hide, fight, the students are doing that. i'm sure they were doing that in the area.

you don't see 20 ambulances being idoled on the side. you would see all of the emts and the firefighters. you don't see a lot of people being rushed out to drama centers. so that makes me hopeful that maybe that eyewitness report was just two students, a teacher intervened. teacher shot, student shot, maybe if we're lucky that is all we got. and we won't have multiple woundings and fatalities. >> how prevalent are guns in schools? what do we know about how often students are getting guns in our high schools? >> craig, we know unfortunately there are a lot of guns available to young people these

days. and obviously it will be differentiated, but the accessibility of guns to young people is certainly throughout. there is a lot of advocacy groups and people working to help curtail this. we know there is a high proliferation of guns and with the avent of ghost guns and others, you can expect that people are arming themselves. it is all across the country when these things happen. it should be shocking to us, but they are not shocking because they happen so often now. >> yeah, we have become desensitized to it. >> i just dropped them off, i

came back and parked on the highway, i got reassurance by my kids, he told me they're locked down, police checked on them, they're waiting to be loaded on the bus, but not knowing if your kid is safe or one that has been shot, it's the worst feeling. >> your kids have been communicating with you, can they give you an idea of what is going in the school right now? >> they're using their phones on silence. they are securing the rest of the school, they were able to call me and let me know that he was safe and that he is on the he is on the other side of the school right now.

>> i have never seen so many buses here. there was a fight in another shot, but with the gunshots going off and hearing that and knowing that your kids are part of that is terrible. >> they're safe, they're okay, have they giveen the children a time line? >> no, they don't. as far as my knowledge, no. my son has a vehicle. i'm going to stay here until i know he is out of his classroom and safe on that bus and then i will meet him down there to bring him back home. >> we have seen many moving right now to get on to the school property. you can take a look at that right here. and to give you an idea of how many buses, look at how many are just waiting right now to get on

to the school property. earlier we saw maybe a few. >> thank youfully that man's son is okay. describing that scene there, i want to bring in garrett haake who is a native texan. he lived in worked in that area in is mans field outside of articlingson, right? >> yes, this is the sound end, and i think part of the reason you're going to see the kind of robust response here is the overlap here if is right in the middle of the dallas and ft.

worth area. the independent school district will have their own police force. this is pretty classic suburbia and you see that reflected even in the pictures that we're seeing. this is a school campus that is about 75 acres. that can be part of the challenge now i think for law enforcement. they may think they have a good handle on this here, but you're looking at a chool that is a campus. and it is also on a pretty significant sized highway. it is just an enormous space, and that will be part of the channel for law enforcement. >>. >> we popped up another box on your screen, bottom right. you see those appearing to gather there.

we have not gotten any cord of a news conference or an official update, but it looks like they're starting to attemptable for a update here. control, correct me if i'm wrong here, but from this vantage point, but it appears students are starting to get on the buses, and again we don't have control of this camera, but it looks like these are people who are leaving one part of the campus and crossing a football field to get on one of the dozens of buses, it is important to point out here, jim cavanagh, they appear to be calm. no one is running.

they are running into a building and that is had can spell more trobl. >> yes, they have this well in hand, i think they know where the shooter is, they can have him in custody, he is deceased, or they know he is not in the building. most likely they have him in custody, let's hope that is the case, and they're moving the students to the reunification center. i think this, hopefully, the violence is over and i think it is based on the shots that we're seeing. we don't see a lot of ambulances or emt or firefighters treating trauma victims. this is a very good sign. so they're going to -- the reason they're bringing all of the students out by the way is to reunite them with their parents but they have a crime scene here. we have a teacher shot and another student shot and we

don't know their condition. so there is a violent assault. possibly murder. a crime scene in the building. so once the suspect is apprehended, the pd has a crime scene to work. they have to collect evidence. they have to pick up the cartridges. they gather blood samples, if the shooter is alive there will be a prosecution and they will need the evidence to be properly collected and saved. and so that is one of the reasons to get everybody out. school will be certainly closed for today. maybe a couple days based on how big the scene is. they might be able to get that one wing shut for awhile to process that. but like we say it is a horrible

situation that we have to deal with, but maybe it will not be as large and vulgar as some that we have seen. it's still bad, we have a teacher shot and a student shot in a classroom in america. that means if someone, if the eyewitness that you had pit on her earlier holds true, and it has not been reverified, but it was aired here, we saw the witness talk, if that is true then we have a student that came to school with a handgun. that is not an uncommon event, that is very frequent and the reason it is so awful is they get in a conflict and think they pull a gun. they're shooting unarmed people, and you know guns carried by people not trained, and ready or kbroun up enough or mentally stable enough, or you know are

not good citizens, it's a problem. so that's what we see ever day. >> again as we're having this conversation you can see staff, students now, outside of timber view high school walking calmly, it appears. bottom right of the screen there we're expecting an official update. let's listen in. >> all right, thank you for being here. first of all i want to thank all of the allegations that responded to this. we have the grand berry police department, the school district, we have all types of federal

agencies here, atf, fbi, all helping us in this situation, so any time that you have an incident like this that comes out as an active shooter particularly in a school all of law enforcement really comes to together to cooperate and make sure we can stop any type of threat, particularly in schools and in our children. so now i just want to brief you and give you the facts as we know it. about 9:15 this morning we got a call that there was a shooting on the second floor of timberview high school. several other phone calls came in at the same time. i can tell you that there was four victims. one was minor injuries who refused treatment. three individuals were taken to the hospital. currently we have multiple

agencies doing a methodical search at the school trying to make sure that all of our children are safe as they're in lock down. and we're trying to do an orderly fashion to bring them out of the school to ensure that they are brought to their participants, okay? once the search is completed we'll make sure all of the students are tra transported on bus to the center of performing arts at 1110 debby lane. prior to the students leaving the building in an orderly controlled vags, we have plaufss that will take photographs of their identifications so we make sure we have all of the students accounted for in an orderly fashion. now this incident as tragic as it is, we take very serious in

law enforcement. we have a expect who is identified. okay? what we believe is happening, preliminary, is that there was a fight between the student and another individual in a class. and a gun was used and there was four victims. i'm here to identify a person of interest right now. it is timothy george simpkins. he is a black male, 18 years of age. we have a car that he is currently driving, that we believe he is driving. a 2018 silver dodge charger. license plate pfy 6260. we currently have multiple agencies including the u.s.

marshalls task force rooking for this individual. again this is a collaborative effort between state, local, and federal agencies to bring this person to justice. >> i'm the chief of police in mans field. i want to say thank you to all of the agencies helping not just with this incident but with other that's are close. mansfield responded and i have to assure you the departments are doing a great job here in bringing all of this to a close. what you're going to see now is that there is continued sedges for our suspect. we asked for our citizens help to continue to search for that person. you should know this person is considered armed and dangerous.

we're continuing to make the searches throughout the state. have the victims in your thoughts and prayers. lift them up in your pray rs, some are already in summary. think about the suspect an their family. we need to bring it to a safe resolution and that's what our goal is. thank you for being here, thank you for your help. >> thank you, i'm part of the grand prairie police department. i would like to echo the police chief's comments. our thoughts and prayerers to the family. our role today is strictly in a support role. you will see our swat team clearing the school to make sure there is no other additional dangers. the police department is also actively involved in the sesmg for the suspect partnering with

the united states marshall service. our goal is to make sure all of the students come out safe. you should see very shortly a large con tin jept of students coming out orderly, loaded on to the buses, and moving to the location i already indicated. our recommendation that parents go to that location. chief mentioned the address, rather than coming to the school. if you come here it makes things more difficult. >> again, i want to just reemphasize that this is not a random act of violence. this is not somebody attacking our schools. this is a student that we believe that got into a fight and drew a weapon.

>> chief, do you know how he was able to get the weapon in the school? >> i do not, we had two independent school district police officer that's house in this school. they were here and they were on scene immediately to render our safety to our students. >> are there metal detectors? the school? >> i don't have that information. >> were the people hospitalized with gunshot wounds? >> i can tell you that yes, that i believe two of the victims were recipients of gunshot wounds. >> we believe that three of the victims were students. one was an older person that may be a teacher. >> there was a report of a pregnant woman being one of the

four victims. that may have fell during the shooting, but received medical treatment from our ems on scene and was released. that person is not in the hospital based on the information that i have right now. >> you have a certain level of confidence that there is no danger hoop. that there is no continued threat to the students in this building? >> yes, i have high confidence that the shooter is not on the premises. i'm confident that it was just one shooter at this school. we want to continue to make sure our kids are safe. we have other swat teams going through each of the rooms to

roadway lease these children are safe. zlrngs okay, we can go back there. the assistant chief saying it all started around 9:15 local time. they started to receive calls about a shooting on the second floor of the sprawling high school. four people shot, injured. one of the four declined any sort of treatment there at the

scene. three of the victims are students. they have been taken to the hospital. the chief mentioned that two of them were in surgery. right now law enforcement searching that school to make sure all of the students are safe. students and staff starting to see students come out of the school. another good sign. the buses that you see there, and there are dozens of buses -- the audio can back, let's go back to that news conference. >> was that phone call a call, essentially warning that this was about to happen? >> no sir, is was not a call that it was a warning. we got multiple 911 callers. >> was there other students in there at the time? >> based on the video i saw there was other students in the class room. >> are you talking about

surveillance video or one captured by students and teachers. >> the one i saw looked captured by a student. >> the video included the fight, i did not see a video that captured the shooting. >> could we get the name of the suspect and the victims? >> the victims i don't have, the suspect is on twitter. we will release the photo of the suspect momentarily. >> any video taken of the incident we ask any citizen or student to make sure that they contact the mansfield police department with any video they have. i will let you know that the police department will handle

the criminal investigation. >> is the suspect known to your agencies? >> i don't have that information. >> any more advice for the general public? >> yeah, i would say if anyone comes across this individual, please do not make contact with him. if they identify the car, make sure you call 911. have an appropriate police response, and let us bring this situation to a conclusion for the safety of the public and our hearts go out to those injured today and all of the students that went through a traumatic incident at the school. >> do owe now the type of weapon? >> i do not. >>. >> you said not to come to the school, they should cop to this off site location and give a

sense, of when they might be able to look their students in the eye again? >> we know this was very traumatic for the parents right now. we know they're worried about their churn and the safety for the chirp. right now we believe the scene is secure and we're just making sure that we can orderly in a controlled fashion make sure that we can identify all of the students and make sure that we can account for everyone here. and what we're going to do, hopefully within the next hour, for the next hour hopefully we're going to orderly, controlled fashion, bring them to buses here on the south side and we're going to bus them to the school district center for performing arts on debby lane. we ask that all of the parents please report there. we have several students that we

have interviewed that were witnesses to this incident. we will hold on to those children, hopefully they will be allowed to call their parents, and i'm sure many students reached out and ensured they are safe and locked in the rooms and police are going to go room by room to ensure that erin is safe and no one else is a suspect or a person of interest in this area. >> i don't, i don't. >> i don't have that information, but i would suspect that yes, the parents have been contacted and asked to report to see their loved one, to be with them, at the hospital, yes. >> do you know the detectives at the school by chance?

>> i'm not certain of the safety. >> i'm jeff, i'm the special agent in charge for atf for the dallas field division. we're here to support our state and local partners in this incident. as law enforcement officer and as a parent, this is kind of your scariest moment, right? when this happens not only with what do for your job but a wife who is a teacher here and kids in the district. so once we get the information on the firearm we're going to track it down. our agents won't sleep. we're working with our partners here to figure out how we got this weap into his hands to come in here and cause this

disruption today. we have not figured out the caliber of the weapon or anything yet. to all of the family member members involved, you're in our thoughts and prayers. >> i don't. just based on the information i know there was more than two or three shots fired. >> i do not personally have the perp of interest, so i can't comment on that. anything else? >> all right, thank you. >> thank you.

>> all right, good day, this is "andrea mitchell reports." following this breaking news from texas, we just heard a update from police officials there after an active shooter situation at timberview high school. they told us there was four victims. one with minor injuries and three taken to area hospitals. they are doing a methodical search to make sure all students are safely taken off campus. a suspect has been identified and they believe the incident could have started after an alter kaegs, a fight in the classroom. they say there is a person of interest that they're looking for at this time. they say he should be considered armed and dangerous. joining me now is carey sanders.

is sounds like this appears to be a safe situation now at this school, but a search going on across the dfw for this suspect. >> when you consider that you have two aspects of this, the urgency of trying to find this suspect, the person of interest, and the participants that want to know about their chirp, are they safe, who was injured or wounded. we know four people were injured, three taken to the hospital, one of those three taken to the hospital believed to be an adult. let's first talk about this person of interest. we have a photograph here. they identified him as timothy george simpkins. they know about his car. he was driving a 2018 silver dodge charger. even more critical is they have the license tag on it which is pfy 6260. why is that important? as he may still be driving,

texas uses a system we see in many parts of the country using license plate readers. sometimes you see it on vehicles, not only on police officers and cars but municipal cars and it is reading license plates. it will trigger an immediate information to launt. if someone was to spot him, we see his picture here, do not approach. dial 911 if you see him. on the other side parents that are trying to find their children, are they okay? some have had communication communication by cell phone. after just about every school district. they set a new bar for horrible school shootings, what we saw after that was just about every school district in the country reassessing how they handle

situations like this and clearly here they have a plan in place and it is one that looks like thae beginning to deploy it. first of all the students are being kept in the classrooms, there is no reason to rich them out. they need to make thorough there is no booby traps. they are going to photograph every student coming out and that information will be useful, again, all of this coming after the marjorie stoneman douglas shooting. >> let's hear what the junior senator from texas has to say. >> the students, the teachers, the first responders, and the parents. and there have been far too many of these, far too many schools. and so we are grateful for the courage and the heroism of the first responders and we're hopeful that all of the students

or individuals that may have been injured will come through and survive. we are here today because of the biden border crisis. that continues to rage on the southern border. -- >> all right, so we jumped in to hear texas senator ted cruz address this situation. i want to bring in catherine who ran the active shooter program at the fbi and the author of "stop the killing" how to end the mass shooting crisis. i think we heard a couple interesting things talking about tracking the license plate here. i know that high school is on a toll road that is a plate by mail toll road. you will have exactly those kind of cameras outside of that high school. you saw the buses out there outside. talk to me about the law enforcement response that we're seeing and not seeing to the

shooting as this all develops. >> i think that is a good point, what you're seeing and what you're not. what you're seeing is very visual. the buses leaned up, that is result of shooting after shooting through the years and law enforcement perfecting and altering the way they respond to the incidents. and make sure that the students feel they're safe once a shooting occurs. you see the buses where the kids get out, you send them a reunification center so you don't have the crazy situations we saw like at the sandy hook shooting where parents are running up to schools and children running to look for parents. and what is not going on right now is what you're not seaing is the intense work that slarmt doing to find that suspect.

they need to make sure the young man that did it is found and stopped. he knows he injured people and that makes him more reckless about how he will handle that gun. so he will fire back at them, fire at someone else, because he is afraid. >> place said they think it started as a fight in is a 2021 tablg on a problem that is happening for as hong as there have been high schools. we also don't know if there is metal detectors here. what are the step that's a school district like this can take in a situation like this? short of metal detectors or searching students to prevent something like a fight that happens in high schools all of the time, from turning into a mass shooting event. >> that is part of the channel, right? you want your classroom

environment and school environment to be peaceful or a fortress. and if you look at security, security is a complicated thing in schools. you know the columbine high school, their budget this calendar year for security in the school systems, also a huge school system, is $8 million. an that is just for the school system security, not the law enforcement support to it. and they're a great example. they decided that we would not turn it into a fortress. it still stands and we will see the requested that you need to be diligent. oo i don't think schools are going to nut metal deattack

tors. >> this is the kind of thing that you did not see precolumn bine. things like large school districts putting them in place and that they train for. i want to bring in karman carrmen best. arlington, texas is a city itself, and they will serve. what happens after the start of a shooting like this. it happens about 9:15 local time, 10:15 eastern type. >> i myself as a police cheer we had the seattle pacific university shooting.

when you have something like that happen, there is an active shooter, you don't know the circumstances right away. a lot of things are going through how many people are involved, could there be traps, that sort of thing that was talked about earlier. and you can see and here information that was available to them. and a fight that broke out, and shots fired and that came out fairly early on. there is a number of agencies early on they have family members. wives or husbands that are teachers there. they going to set up a command post, start to have the first responders since column bine, immediately setting up their teams, sitting inside, and the

school said you know we had so many of these they're much more prepared. they check the doors and they go direct to where they hear the activity so they can get there immediately and stop the potential immediate threat. it seems like in this situation the shooter, you know, the suspected shooter fled in a vehicle and was away from the scene. so now that the part, this is still dynamic in many ways, they have been rendered fairly safe. they got their identification, they are getting to family member members, and his response will be unpredictable at best. hopefully they have been able to contact family members.

that may or may not happen. officers are working at all agencies to try to contact this person through other means to see if they can make this safe for everyone. >> go ahead. >> i was going to say, the visual license plate reader wills be helpful. >> you have someone that you know has used the weapon. it is a correctless regard for human life. how does that change how police will approach this man hunt? and to hopefully take this person into custody to make this person also safe. >> there is so many scenarios that could happen here. you know they could spot the

vehicle and try making a traffic stop with the person inside. they could, you know, he could park the vehicle somewhere and gone into a residence, you know, a store, there is so many different scenarios. the key is going to be approach with course, certainly if it is called in they ask anyone in the area to leave so they can make contact with him. maybe you can get a family member to talk to the person, calm them down, get them to recognize the best and the safest thing for everybody is to surrender. that would be ideal. sometimes that doesn't happy and as you noted a young person afraid, all right injured people, being unpredictable at best. >> i want to bring in the congressman who represents tarrant county. what can you tell us about the

school district and about the preparations that might or might not be in place to hand this thing. we're seeing the buses transport students. they seem like the type that will have procedures and plans practiced and in place for any kind of a incident like what we're seeing now. >> absolutely. the school district is not in my district. it's just outside of my district. i know a lot of people that attend school in the mansfield independent school district. it's very popular. there is only one high school, the mans field high school in the city of mansfield and now they have five or six high schools in that independent school district. some of the kids live in grand prairie. and a majority of the kids live

in the city of arlington and arlington and mans fooed overlap with one another. it is a very racially mixed school district. it's about as evenly proportioned with the plaque, white, latino and the growing asian population as any school district you would see in north texas. i hope when we learn more that we, you know, that we can learn more from the school district and find out exactly what happened and that everybody is going to be okay. it seems leek the situation is under control now based on the reports from the local police department and i hope this young man can come in and be peacefully resolved and that parents can get the answers they're looking for. >> interestingly, governor

abbott was expected to speak to everyone from the border today. we may yet hear from him on this issue. congressman when we have a shooting, particularly like this in a school, some say in the immediate aftermath that it is too immediate aftermath it's too soon to talk about the politics of guns in this country and some who say if the shooting has already happened, it's too late to start talking about the politics of guns in this country. i don't have to tell you, texas has some of the most permissive gun laws in the country. you have potentially an 18-year-old with a handgun at school. what do you make of the situation on the ground in texas as it relates to weapons laws and how it may or may not impact the violence like this that we see in a suburban high school. >> absolutely. look, we know that there are certain areas when it comes to gun safety where democrats and republicans are just, you know, miles and miles apart. but i think that commonsense gun

legislation that would help situations like this, perhaps, again we don't know all the details on how this student may have obtained this gun or exactly what type of gun it may have been. but things like background checks and tightening up loopholes on background checks, that ought to be something that is easy. private ownership of gun sales, when it's a private sale. tightening up those loopholes. we saw what happened in midland when it was a random shooting with someone going around town shooting and killing people. that could have easily been solved by making those people go through a licensed individual where that -- where that firearm could have been transferred between someone that was federally licensed to sale firearms where they would have had to do a background check. and you could have stopped that situation from occurring. situations like that, the

charleston loophole, those are the type of things where we should be able to come together. they're overwhelming supported by the american public. i think that, you know, you're talking about 80-plus percent of -- 90-plus percent in some situations where expanded background checks are popular. we don't know exactly what this situation is going to look like once the police, you know, figure out the rest of the information and give it to the public. but in the meantime, sure, we ought to be able to work together to pass commonsense gun laws that are overwhelming supported by democrats and republicans and independents in this country. it should be easy, in my opinion. >> congressman, thank you. i'm looking at a piece of paper from the mansfield isd which says the all clear has been given at timberview high school. there's some information here that's a bit contradictory. they say there's one injured

student and one injured staff member. of course, the police -- arlington police said we were looking at three injured people in hospitals. so a bit of a discrepancy there. hopefully that's something we can get clarified but information can be a little bit hard to come by. i want to bring in a national security contributor here at nbc news. frank, this seems like a fairly straightforward case based on what we know from the local police department here. what steps are investigators, what steps are, you know, local police, the federal and state agencies that get involved in a case like this, what steps are they taking now to piece this together, make sure they're looking for the right person. >> there's a couple of things happening simultaneously. first, there will be interviews done, interview teams will be set up among law enforcement. anyone who knew of these students or the people involved

in this fight reportedly, people in the classroom, people outside of the classroom, neighbors, there will be a total picture developed of the alleged shooter and the victim and victims to see what the tensions were that developed, how this thing broke out, what the history of this is and simultaneously, you saw atf at the press conference. they're going to focus like a laser on the weapon. where was it accessed by this person? if the preliminary story is true that this is a student shooter, and sometimes this gets wrong, no matter which, they will focus on how this shooter got access to the weapon. this becomes important and i know with your last guest, you brought up this issue of when it's appropriate to talk about the political side or gun control side. for me as a former career law enforcement officer, this isn't political at all. it's a safety issue. in texas, as of september 1st you can now possess a weapon without a license, no permit, no

training. why is that important in this? well, we need to understand whether that played a role in this. will that new september 1st law in texas give even kids more access to guns, not because they can walk in and purchase one as a minor, but rather because it's in the house more, in the neighborhood more. we need to study where the gun came from and lastly, were warning signs and indicators missed among the faculty, the students, the counselors? the families, was there talk of hurting someone? was there talk of tension? was the language of dissponsor dan si being used? we got to teach everyone the warning signs and indicators that someone is on the path to violence. >> we're lucky to have a wealth of former fbi experience here. i want to bring kathryn back in on that point. talking about ways that this kind of shooting can potentially

be prevented in a suburban high school like so many other around the cub country. we talk about drills and things that students and teachers sometimes go through. is intelligence like what frank was just talking about, the solution to not make our schools into fortresses, but make them into the kind of place where simply listening and knowing what's going on, where it can be social workers and therapists and counselors not necessarily armed cops who are on the front end of getting in front of something like a fight between students that might lead to a shooting? >> i have to say, law enforcement has long been the last one to be brought in on issues. it's really not the -- law enforcement that needs to start -- when it comes to school shootings, parents and peers, teachers, but mostly parents and peers are the ones who hear. research shows that 80% to 90% of the time, somebody leaks that information that they might be

doing a type of shooting. in this case, we have a lot of -- it appears to be an argument. that intelligence needs to be collected. we collect that at the school level through a threat assessment team. the team needs to get the information from parents and peers that there's a person that they're concerned about or actions that -- behaviors of concern, that they're concerned about. >> i want to go back to kerry sanders if i can. you have the unwelcomed distinction of having become an expert in covering shootings like this. i wonder from your experience on shootings like this, talk to me a little bit about what we're seeing now, this reunification process with parents, how a school, how a community adapts or responds in the media aftermath of having violence like this dropped out of nowhere on them? >> reporter: what we see right now is parents who have been incredibly anxious about to get some relief.

they will go through anxiety, relief, and then anger. and when they get to the anger part, which will come in a day or so, they'll start asking and demanding answers to questions, some of those answers are not available. they want to know how a student was able to get a gun onto campus. there's just a practical matter of getting people on and off a campus every day. you hear people talk about medical detectors which some school districts use. but even those sometimes do not pick up on items like this. kids come and go from the schools, the people who are monitoring the metal detectors know the kids and give them a nod to come through. it's a complicated process if you think you're going to somehow lock down a school, to prevent guns from coming onto campus. the authorities right now are focusing on one aspect which is the most important for this situation and that is to locate the suspect. so we're going to put his picture back up here on the

screen right now. it's important to note that everybody has one of these. they've got a phone. this picture is on twitter, it's on social media, everybody has a chance to look at this 18-year-old. the authorities will be not only going to his address, that is an address that's in the records at the school, they know where he lives, they will not only be looking for his car, they will be attempting to find, at 18 years old, he's not going to be running on his own. he's going to be reaching out to somebody. maybe he's reaching out to his parents. maybe his parents are counseling him right now, turn yourself in. there are a lot of pieces of this puzzle that are unfolding in realtime and the authorities' greatest concern is, when they believe he's armed and dangerous and maybe is beginning to process what he has done now after a fight at school or at least a reported fight at school, that he may hopefully understand that he needs to turn himself in as opposed to trying to take this to the very end.

that is the greatest concern sometimes referred to as suicide by cop. there are so many pieces of this. that's why they're saying this is a dangerous situation. he's believed to have a gun. >> kerry sanders, thank you. thank you to all of our law enforcement experts walking us through the breaking news in this hour. we will stay on top of it throughout the afternoon. but that's going to do it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." chuck todd with "mtp daily" starts right now. ♪♪ welcome to "meet the press daily." we've got a lot to get to. we are going to begin with the breaking news out of arlington, texas, this is the facts that we know. four people have been injured, three are hospitalized following a fight which led to a student opening fire at timberview high school which is just outside of arlington, texas, a suburb, of course, of the