people are trying to find their loved ones. >> sad day in boston, we'll pause here just briefly to welcome more viewers to our coverag coverage. >> and for those, just joining us, brian williams in new york. all eyes are on the situation in boston. this is -- this was the live television picture showing what we now know to be the first of two explosions. in the center of your screen you see a runner go down after getting hit by a piece of scrap nell, you see the smoke plume rise no less than 50 yards from the finish line, and then a second explosion seconds later, just a short distance down the street, appears to be equidistant from the route of the race. both explosions appear to have been located at or near the base of buildings, at the finish line of the boston marathon this

afternoon. on patriots day, about an hour after the first highest ranking elite finishers. and, sadly, the injuries we are hearing about being triaged and taken to hospitals consistent with what you would find in similar explosions in a war zone. and we're choosing not to report any numbers early on, because there's going be great confusion with several metropolitan hospitals getting the wounded from this. if there's any good news to report at all. and it's a double-edged sword. because they were likely among the wounded. you have publicly safety officials right there. the medical tent was in view of the first explosion. you have boston pd, fire, ems all there on duty because of the secured finishline. twlees initial aerials from our

station, whdh in boston. right at the top of your screen you see the white powder. aftermath of an explosion. that was what was left of the reviewing stand. the black truck's part of boston pd as they investigate. the feds were on route and you see the aftermath from an explosion on that sidewalk. no other way to put it. windows were blown out. flags were blown down. you saw the barricade came down and runners who were just yards from -- for several of them, accomplishing the greatest fete of their lifetime, one of the great athletic achievements there is, 26.2 miles in the famed boston marathon, one of the most famous public sporting events in this country and instead, knocked off their feet by one of two concussive explosions at the finish line.

way too early to draw any conclusions. this is just into us. three separate law enforcement officials are looking very closely at the possibility that this is, to use military parlance, again, an improvised explosive device. an ied. that this could have been a bag or satchel, that this somehow eluded race-day security. whether it was pre positioned or came in during the excitement of the finish, and escaped the attention of sniffer dogs and electronics. let's listen in once again to whdh. >> we don't really know. because this all happened close to the medical tent. you have those foil wraps and other ambulance is pulling in right now, anticipating yet the

people here at boston medical center don't have a firm count, official count, because people are still coming in. so they haven't come in to give us much information. we have only been able to glean from what we see outside here, i have to admit just a couple minutes ago, there was a very, looked like a very heart-wrenching scene, a mother and a couple of other young women came running out of the hospital. they're jumping into a car. i asked them if they lost someone or had someone in the explosion and she said yes, my daughter. we're trying to find her. so, apparently -- they're growing hospital to hospital to see. someone else is coming in right now. you see someone else going on a stretcher. he is sitting up. again, we don't know if this an s an individual from the -- who is watching the marathon, however, he just did come in a ambulance, he went into the same door as the other victims who clearly were from the marathon went in. but, inside, inside the

hospital, we've been told that it's quite chaotic inside. a lot of nurses and hospital personnel have been -- had been called in to help out and we understand also a description from someone who is inside, and talking to some of the staff here, said there are a number of people here with very severe injuries. so, that's the scene here at boston medical center. again, the ambulance -- you can hear the ambulances coming and going. we, again, with our own eyes have seen at least six people come in here, possibly seven. again, people with foil wrapped around them. people laying on stretchers going in here. the situation inside described as mayhem, and quite chaotic inside the hospital as well. that's the latest live from boston medical center i'm byron barnett. that's live coverage that our viewers in boston are receiving from whdh. just a terrible day in what has -- should have been just a

magnificent day to the city of boston, the annual running of the boston marathon. like gleason with apology, mike gleason was an nypd veteran who was just a spectator today. had a member of the family running in the race. mike, i guess since you saw this, do you have any reason to add anything to the descriptions thus far? we are now able to see it as recorded by live tv cameras. but did your trained eyes catch anything? did you detect anything anice? >> no. everything was normal. everyone was relaxed and happy and joyceous, everyone was drinking their water and wrapping themselves in foil, and then the explosion right next to the finish line and then within another 30 seconds another explosion. and then pandemonium struck.

>> i was saying, this is how it is done overseas, initial and secondary, just as people are rushing towards the wounded from the initial explosion. >> my worst concern we had two children, my friend's two children, they put them in a sprint store, they were kind enough to let them go in there. and we wanted to move away from an area that there was a high concentration of people. >> it's sad to say, but anybody who had any exposure to law enforcement or military, are prompted to get out of there, which is human nature instead of running in there. only because of the risk of a secondary explosion in the cruel era of things. it looks like there you have -- that's again the best picture, right there, the powder burns against the side of the building and then again the reviewing

stand. mike gleason, thank you very much. we have the first facts from this from the boston police department and this is pretty grim. boston pd is reporting by twitter two dead, 22 injured. and, again, 23 now, two dead, 23 injured. again, we know from eye witness reports, from what we've heard, some of these injuries of grievous injuries consistent with what happens when an explosion goes off in a tight urban area. look at the facade of that building. you had people between that building and the police barricades and you set off an explosion and this is what's going to happen. flags, banners, gave way. people were hit, and look at human nature. run toward the explosion. that's right when the second one

one went off in the space of about 15 to 20 seconds. of course, a lot of these people. it's their -- not only is it their job, it's their reflex, these are public safety officials, these are race volunteers. a saving grace, most of the police officers you see with the bright green vests are also in this day in edge wearing kevlar vests, so let's hope there are boston pd members who were able to survive this and help by that. but it's something to think about. maybe it made the difference in a few cases. this is patriots day in the city of boston. commemorating lexington and concord. this was the day of a red sox game. fenway park is about a mile and a half away from this closest intersection that we're talking about here is boyleston and dartmouth in boston. we had a picture across the

charles river showing the smoke plume from this -- these duel explosions. again, no one has said anything official. it will take forensic testing of the residue from the explosion, but there are certain accelerants and certain explosives that will immediately tell investigators this was not a gas main. this was not a kind of naturally occurring explosion from the systems contained in a large american city. this was say -- an explosive that was put there to do harm. we don't know that yet. it is just -- quite a coincidence otherwise that we have two concussive impacts here on the finish line of the boston marathon. again, the aerial pictures from our nbc station, whdh tv in

boston, where they will continue live coverage, all shifts have been called to work, goes without saying. boston pd. let's listen in to some of the eye witness reports our station is getting. >> can't comprehend what happened here. people reported to explosions near the finish line. we've already established that. you can see the emotion on the faces. >> the audio goes with the initial yaerl pictures. this is part of the early live reporting. let's see if we can't switch channels and dip in to what whdh is saying right now. can we do that? >> i also ran in to a man who was covered with a blood-stained shirt and i stopped him and i asked him if he was okay and he just said, i'm a doctor. and proceeded on to the scene. there was a line of dozens of wheelchairs from the medical

team making their way over a finish line. we're trying to figure out and get more details. as you walk to the area in the back, you see so many runners still wrapped in their metallic blankets with their family, still trying to locate their families. as you can imagine, so many streets in and around the boilston area closed. they're having a hard time locating and reuniting with their family members. there's a difficult scene. there's several people stalking others, asking if they know more details, have they heard more and if they know more information. as i under there's a news conference with foxnews in a couple of minutes. as i'm walking around. a lot of people still shell-shocked. still trying to chair information with each other. but have very little information on their own. >> all right. susan. thank you so much. we're just getting new

information from mass. general that they have no reported deaths at the hospital but they have a total of 19 patients, six of them listed in critical condition, five of whom are listed in serious condition. eight patients with unspecified injuries and we do know there was a news conference scheduled for mass. general. look outside mass. general, video from the hospital. we're told a news conference will be taking place at the hospital for the next few minutes. when that happens, we'll of course bring it to you when it does happen. boston police confirming, two people died in these explosions, 23 people hurt at the finish line although, i would argue that number is probably going to go up, amanda, at least the injuries, we have 19 injuries at mgh and i imagine boston medical center, brigham woman's probably has some as well. >> we've seen six people at the boston medical center and we're already above the total. the numbers are changing. minutes ago it was 22 now we're

getting word there have been 23 injury and two deaths. >> again, on a day like this, you look for silver linings, we have first-class hospitals within very, very short distance. mass. general being one of them we just heard discussed there in boston. and, certainly, the folks who have been -- who have become victims in this -- this explosion, you see there on tape replay, were triaged immediately by the medical professionals, who were there for the medical tent for the marathon, and then transported immediately to any number of hospitals in boston. chuck todd can show us what's happening in washington, which, again, has become an almost standard reaction these days when something happens that we can't define right away and a preponderance of caution has to be enforced.

pennsylvania avenue, which was closed to vehicular traffic in the late 1990s, has been closed to pedestrian traffic in front of the white house this afternoon. as the capitol police, secret service have formed an outer risk of security there. chuck, can you hear me? >> i am, brian. >> we're looking out through the white house fence, across the street and the perimeter is now on the other side of pennsylvania? >> that's right. and you see now, they've erected yellow tape. secret service, uniformed secret service, as you can see is now sort of standing watch there. this is not -- this is not dissimilar to what you see when there's a head of state that comes in here for a few minutes. so, this is the same type of lockdown that pennsylvania avenue is going through when that happens. so, again, and i know you said it, it is more out of precaution

for now than anything else. one of the little tidbits i can report from various security sources, that a joint antiterrorism task force between state, federal and local officials has not yet taken place but that is going -- they're starting to organize that with boston authority, massachusetts authorities and federal authorities to sort of get the information flow sharing in a way that everybody can be on the same page. they're trying to set that up now as we speak, brian. >> and, chuck, perhaps you can help me describe that i didn't mean to be flip when i said it's become a standard post-9/11 response, but interest have been numerous times where, because of numerous scarce and just exerting great caution, journalists have been escorted off the grounds, visitor, staffers. these perimeters have been put up. >> but i can also tell you they are letting people with appointments through. they are letting people with

passes. so it's a low-grade lockdown, if you will, at this point. not the type you just described where, you're right, they will tell us all to leave or if we're here they won't let us stand out side where we are now. for now, it's keeping tourists away without proper credentials away from this facility. >> chuck todd, thank you. we're now showing live pictures. i believe this is the er entrance at mass. general, and oh, it's boston medical. sorry. this appears to be back on boilston a boston fire unit going by. this is, i believe, tape from earlier. we heard something else start to happen as part of our live coverage on whdh, in big cities where terrible things have happened, you start to have the

cell service go down, because the band width is finite, that's been happening and has been happening in some of the live reports out of boston. i want to bring in an expert. we've had of counsel for a time. michael lighter. national security analyst for us, served as the director of national counter terrorism center from '08 to july of 2011 was in the room during the bin laden raid. michael. you've been watching and list listening to coverage. give us an expert's eye view. what do you think we have here and what would you be looking for? >> well, the first thing i would say, brian is that at this point, kind of an hour into the event, we still have to accept that the information is incredibly fragmentary and a lot of it will be wrong. all of the boston city police

department. federal government, mostly the fbi, department of homeland security, the white house, everyone is now scrambling to understand what exactly hand in that location. and away from boston, people are starting to put in and some of the security measures chuck todd put in at the white house. we'll start to see somedationle police presence in city like new york, los angeles, "chicago." my initial take right now, this could turn out to be anything. it's a heck of a coincidence to happen right at the end of the boston marathon route. certainly saying what caused terrorism, something else, a natural gas explosion. but i think the forensic examination by the police, potentially claims if a group was responsible, that should start to uncover the next hour or to. i sense we'll have a better

sense what oh dmurd boston today. >> michael, taking your precaution, precaution of a veteran in this field. going from the kind of amateur visual forensics of looking at the aerial and seeing the the powder burns on the sidewalk. emanating from the side of the building. radiating out into the street. has the hallmarks of explosions you and i have seen in the past. >> that's right. i would guess everyone in u.s. government and boston right now is operating under the assumption that this is a terrific attack. knowing exactly who is behind that, that will take some time. people will start the premise that thatth was terrorism. and work their way backwards. some of those statements will be, we're not sure until all of

the facts get in. everyone will operate as if this was a terrorist attack. again, i think the timing, the coincidence of this being right at the finish of a major public event, that would certainly lead me in the direction to say that this looks very, very early on like a terrorist attack. >> and earlier, i said, and correct me if i am wrong, that even the initial tests, i mean, explosives experts will be able to walk up, smell and touch this and the tress ens -- wouldn't the presence of cordite indicate well, this is no manhole cover, this is no gas leak. >> i think that will be ruled out relatively quickly. you have different explosives that may or may not be detectable. basic explosives have been used by terrorists. i do expect in the next hour or

so the boston police departmentally is a very talented and good organization that has deep counter terrorism expertise working with the fbi-lead federal joint terrorism task force in boston, they're going know in very short order whether or not this is a natural event or terrorist bomb. again, who is responsible for that bomb, that will take more in the days rather than hours but we'll know in short order what the root cause of this is. >> michael, we'll continue. this is the way it is. we'll dip into the local coverage. nbc station whdh coverage of what is happening in their town. >> as i was walking i saw one man covered with fresh blood on his shirt. i had to stop and ask if he was okay. he walked quickly by me and said i'm a doctor. as i continued on, i saw there were still people making their

way through the finish line as they were trying to find their loved one, find their significant others and let them know they were okay. i ran into our news reporter, steve cooper, he runs the marathon every year. he was very upset. he was okay, but he still had not found his wife who was at the finish line awaiting him. we are trying to figure out that she is just find and they have not been able to reunite. i'm on an area at newberry street that's all closed off. i can see the medical tent. it's closed off so i can't tell you how many people are in there. as i was making my way, i see dozens of wheelchairs from the medical team trying to make their way to the scene. they were just dozens lined up and making their way towards the boyleston area. and, as you can imagine, there is just so many people, visitors in the area. they still don't know how to get

around. many are just so upset about what happened here. >> susan, susan, you're on n newbury street. can you just tell us, are there a lot of people there with you right now? are they just hanging around trying to figure out what happened or have they cleared out? newbury street is basically a ghost town? >> i'm on newbury street and dartmouth street. it is a ghost town. it's very eeerie to see this t this quiet. only time i trer is when we the had the blackout. on the secondary streets. arlington. the huntington street area. the area by the john hancock building. tons of people are still there and many are trying to figure out how to get home. how to get back to their hotel rooms, how to get to their friends' homes. many are visitors here, so they

don't know how to navigate through the streets. there is just a difficulty not only walking around but the mass transit, the ts are not working and there's a lot of confusion for a lot of visitors. >> susan joining us on the phone in newbury and dartmouth. thank you very much. >> we do want to get to janet who is covering the story. janet, you are there for what was supposed to be a happy story, a lot of folks finishing the marathon and a lot of exciteme excitement, i understand you've been pushed back from the scene is that correct? >> that's right. we are at boilston and clarendon. we've had to clear the scene because it is a ghost town on boyleston street. it is completely empty.

in the last hour, they started shutting down side streets. we saw a boz police cars past us, we could not see where they were going. but obviously they're still keeping this case write active. not just these first two explosions. i ant to point out something else. years reporting, you see behind me on my right. way down there on stewart street, that becomes the largest er in the city every year on this one day. they prepared to take care of more than 1,000 runners. so, there are more emergency beds in that tent than there are in any other hospitals in boston combined. today very sadly this tent has been used for a very unexpected and horrible tragedy. as we've said over and over again, just moments after this explosion happened, the first one, the response was meet. i want to recap four again what we saw. because we actually saw the

explosion from our vantage point. we are in the truck. we heard the first one, we saw smoke coming out and at first we thought it was perhaps some kind of cannon that was celebrating this marathon and not something that was devastating. we're running this video now that was taken by my colleague don nelson who was manned on the bridge over the finish line. you seat bridge they build every year in order to get all of the runners coming across, that overhead view of the runners. he caught that explosion. and, again, from eye witness accounts, they saw two packages or bags that someone described to me against the building near 671 boyleson street. that's a little bit more than halfway down the black from dartmouth towards exeter on the newbury side. again the two explosions happened very close together. and a while after, another eye witness running in the other direction told me he heard other

devices had been found. it was something i could not report initially because this was unconfirmed. then we heard the third explosion that was later confirmed to be a controlled explosion and indeed that was another device that was found. at this point, we have not had official comment from law enforcement. they are still too busy dealing with this case. we're expecting, as you know, that news conference to come up in a short time later. but we've been reporting the numbers. very devastating the number of injury and death from this. and that is the latest from where i am right now. in clarendon. >> janet, we want to touch on something you mentioned a few minutes ago. you mentioned clearly, you got the idea something -- you got pushed back so there's clearly something that's happening. we got a note earlier from counter terrorism officials. and bomb technicians that there were multiple explosive devices. clearly the two that went off on

the finish line and boyleston. they found another device, they set it off themselves. but it leads us to believe as we read earlier, there may be more devices in and around that area which is why police moved you in part trying to clear that area out of here. >> now i can tell yo before i didn't feel comfortable reporting this. initially, right at that explosion, maybe it was reporter instinct i was tearing down boyleston the opposite way to go to the library grand stands, i thought that is where it was. i went to the grand stand, saw the location, saw the windows. a police officer came to me and said get out of here, we don't know what else can happen. at that point i can tell you i was terrified. >> we've been listening to the breaking news. here's mass. general hospital

press conference. >> understanding is that we have the hazmat team on stand by but have not had anybody who received hazardous materials exposure. >> what are you seeing. >> mostly orthopedic, traumatic amputations, injuries to arms and legs, that's what we're seeing right now. >> are there surgery and amputati amputations? >> some patients received traumatic ambu stations at the scene. already? >> alasdair, last name conn. and i'm chief of emergency services here. >> six are severely injured. >> six are severely injured

requiring immediate resuscitation. we've started the backup team to the backup team. they've all responded to the emergency. >> and what about the others? you said 16 others, 19 others? >> 19 patient in total. >> what kind of injuries do they have? >> mostly they appear to be orthopedic, however we've not completely assessed them. they've managed to get all x-rays and c.a.t. scans at the moment. >> 6 critical and 5 pretty -- >> that's correct. >> would you characterize this as something you see in a military setting? >> oh, absolutely. absolutely. this is like a bomb explosion that we hear about in the news in baghdad or israel or some other tragic place in the world, yeah. >> and you have trained for that here, just in case? >> absolutely. about two years ago we --

>> cut away. we're not in control of the feed from the news conference, but we got the gist of it there. i think much will be said. obviously no two explosions are alike, but if you take, as an assumption, that this was an explosive device and not the kind of explosion caused by a big city mishap, gas main or what have you, let's say this was indeed a parcel left behind to do harm, there are different types. and it's a grisly business, but many contain shrapnel, that we've seen deployed in dual wars overseas, if this was not, it might be just concussive, it was made of materials designed to elude any detection on its way

in. made of perhaps organic materials that wouldn't give off the scent signature that would cause alarm. who knows? we're so, so, so early in this. the smoke has almost literally just cleared from boylston in boston. the finish line bombing at the boston marathon today. dean walker was part of the universal sports broadcasting team in a production trailer. he's with us by telephone. dean, i'm told that you apparently were alerted by the first blast and had enough time to react and were an eyewitness to the second one, correct? what did you see? >> that is correct. approximately 2:50, we were preparing for our wrap-up show from the boston marathon. and literally our production trucks were parked right across the street from where the first

bomb went off. that first bomb shook the truck very violently. that's when we turned to look at the screen and we saw the second bomb go off until 100 feet up the course on the opposite side -- up boylston from where we were at. >> and this was -- we've been just going by the picture from the photo bridge as taken live pictures that were taken by whdh. and i've been assuming here that you have kind of the usual mixture of people from the edge of the building out to the police barricade, you have friends and family, people who know somebody racing, people who got there early, staked out a position, then you have race volunteers and law enforcement all along that barricade, correct? >> absolutely. and that side of the street had more public access than the side we were on because we were on the side of the street at the

grandstands, the vip grandstands. that side of the street had more foot traffic and less security measures because it was basically open to the public. >> okay, well that may end up being a critical difference here. >> the debris from the bomb -- the debris from the explosion that hit one runner as we watch, did it have the range to reach across the street to the reviewing stand? >> from our perspective, we don't think so. when we saw the smoke come up from the blast, it was isolated pretty much to the sidewalk and it did not debt o night right at the edge of the sidewalk. it was back away from the edge of the street probably at least 10 to 15 feet. >> i'm almost happy we don't have a tighter shot of this

because of the injuries suffered by that one runner who has just kind of become the focal point of that picture as we play it over and over. this is tough to take on a repetitive basis. and ditto these pictures. there's a whole lot of folks there in the crowd. and dean, we had a third explosion which boston pd has now confirmed was a controlled explosion of what they suspected was yet another device. were you aware of that from where you were escorted to within boston? >> we weren't aware of that until we returned back to our hotel, which is about a half mile away from the explosions. but we were told that, you know, where that device was was probably closer to us than the first device that went off. >> dean walker with universal

sports, thank you very much for being with us. saddar azturk is with us as well. what did you see and from what angle? >> i was about a half block away. i left the fairmont hotel, which is a half block away from the finish line. i was about to eat and i heard a bomb go off. i heard a loud explosion and i felt it through my legs and all the way into my chest. everyone at that moment had pretty much stopped moving and was just in awe, and didn't know what was happening, whether it was a bomb or something had fallen or whatever. but next thing you know we heard a second explosion. then if you looked outside, people immediately, their faces turned into tears and were running for their lives basically. >> and again, what would you put -- just ballpark the radius

of the concussion. >> well, i mean, it didn't even heart about the radius, within the block that it happened, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people around. like even not even near the finish line. blocks away streets are completely full. completely filled with people who are just running. i was -- i mean -- half a block away and i could see the smoke in the air. you could almost smell smoke skl. >> serdar, thank you very much. serdar ozturk is one of the witnesses. a photo getting wide circulation from one of the staff photographers from the "boston globe." let's take the banner down, the special report banner. and if we can take the lower banner down, what is in the foreground is the runner, i

believe, we see getting injured and hit with shrapnel. this is obviously just after it happens. what you can't see beneath that black banner that says boston globe sports is the runner i believe we see hit on the replay of the videotape. this is the smoke from the initial concussion. you see officers are still reacting. and there he is. he's down. he's injured. the officer in the center of the picture about ten feet back appears to be being blown off his feet. and this is just a chance taking of a photo at the moment right after impact when the air, the whoosh is still coming from right to left in your picture. but that's one of the still photos getting a lot of circulation on the web. mike lupica is with us, the veteran sports columnist and

author and broadcaster. mike, this is hard to believe. you talk about the finite list of great american public events and sporting traditions in a great american city, this is at or near the top. >> brian, i went to boston college. my sons have gone to -- my sister used to run this race every year. unless you have ever attended this race -- and i used to koifrt all the time. i was at the finish line last year walking back from fenway park. this isn't just a state holiday in boston -- this is the biggest day of the year in boston. and for me to look at the pictures today and see people running away from the finish line of the boston marathon is one of the most chilling things i've ever seen. >> mike, it's hard to express. people familiar with urban environments, it's really densely packed. we talk about newbury street. if you know michigan avenue in chicago or fifth avenue -- kind of a combination of fifth and

madison in new york. it's a beautiful strolling shopping gallery street not far from boylston where we're looking at. these are tightly packed buildings. everybody is filling the streets on this day. 26,000 runners. think of how many bring their posses with them of friends and family and supporters. >> this -- it stretches all the way along the course, brian. but you're exactly right. this is one of the main plazas of the city. it's one of the great walking areas. unless you've ever been at the finish line, we would get -- we used to guess it was a joke how many were at the finish line. i was standing with neil ander from "the new york times." i said what did we call the crowd last year? he said, i think it was a million. it looks like more this year. we better go with a million and a half. and one guy behind us said, i was wondering how you guys comp with that number. this is filled with people. this is their version on a

spring day of new york city and times square on new year's eve. if you are trying to navigate your way around boston on this day, good luck, you feel like you've run a boston marathon yourself just getting from point to point. but all you see are happy people, brian. until today. >> and of course, mike, now they've shut down the t which is the boston subway system. now you have all these visitors, some, a lot from overseas i, bu many from all over the country. this man in the still picture from the "boston globe" staff, think of just his story. by nature this means he finished just an hour off the elite finishers and think how hard and the meaning of this in his life. he ends up being a wounded victim of an explosion at the finish line of the boston marathon. >> brian, you never had to be there to see the winners finish. it didn't matter what time you

got to copley square. all you saw were happy people crossing the finish line. and then in the outlying parts of that, you see them with, you know, some kind of cover on, happy, tired people. not running away from this finish line like they did today, but walking and trying to find friends and family. on this day when everybody was trying to find friends and family after this happened. >> mike lupica, thanks for being with us. thanks for the perspective. it's sad announcement on the boston marathon facebook page right now. the family meeting area has been moved to boston common. runners are being directed there to meet friends and family. city of boston assets have been deployed to assist runners at the common. i'm also thinking of mayor menino who has had a bunch of health challenges, announcing he will not be running for re-election. spent a chunk of time in the hospital. most recently was being treated for a broken leg.

this was, obviously, his favorite day of the year. there's no bigger booster of the city of boston than tom menino. and now to have this, we have every federal agent in the region heading to boston, massachusetts. we're just going to keep putting these pictures on the air as they come in. you see all the yellow vests of first responders. remember how many were already there. pete williams, our justice correspondent, pete, sadly, as i keep saying, we have way too much expertise in explosives and terrorism investigation over these past ten years. let us hope that we can put that to good use very quickly here. >> well, i think it's already turning out to be that way, brian. first of all, the initial analysis that there were two devices that went off and two more that they quickly found, now what they'll be doing now is

proceeding on several tracks. a team of people that will go in there and try to pick up every little piece that they can of these devices. we believe for sure they were devices that went off. we don't know how much they're going to be able to get out of the other two because it appears that they very quickly, and the term they use, is rendered them safe. which means they shoot a high velocity short pulse water cannon at them to blow them up. so we don't know how much a look they got at them before that happened. but in term of the other one, they'll look at the pieces. that's one track. the second thing is they're going around to do something for every person that was in the area to interview them. the other thing, which is very productive, is looking for surveillance video, of which there's undoubtedly a lot in this area. very congested metropolitan area. hotels nearby, businesses. they're going to look and see if they see any of these things being placed to try to figure out, you know, when they were

there, who might have placed them. and that will be a key part of the investigation as well. >> pete, i keep thinking about the surveillance video. of course, as i mentioned ye earlier, everywhere we go in high density urban areas these days, you've got to be okay with being on tv because there are usually multiple views of you here in new york city, they have software that make the cameras smart. they can visually look for containers that don't have someone attached to them. containers that are new to the frame. i'm assuming that some of that exists in boston and they're looking at the possibility that if these came in to be placed where they did during competition, that they were built in somehow to evade detection. >> that's certainly possible. and we should know more about

that, i would think, in the coming hours as they begin to look at whatever pieces they can find. and in terms of the surveillance video, yes, all the things that you just said. and then also, of course, the timing here is going to be important because they can work back from the time of the detonations and look for anomalies, things that weren't there and suddenly showed up. so that will be a key part of this. >> pete, we should also talk about the kind of chain of anticipatable events. 90% of them out of a preponderance of caution that we're probably going to end up reporting. there's a report of a ground stop for incoming flights into boston logan. we've also seen the white house perimeter moved out and across pennsylvania avenue. there is a kind of a -- not quite a lockdown mentality, but i would imagine we'll have

reservists with automatic weapons in new york's grand central, if we don't already, laguardia and so on and so forth. >> yes, that's already been ordered for new york. i think part of that is until they know for sure what this was, the prudent thing is to assume that this was the beginning of something that could be going on elsewhere. no reason to think that. but the smart thing to do these days is to take those precautions now in case, you know -- the other thing is they have to worry about copycats. somebody else trying this elsewhere. this sort of circumstance, you know, of course, we're reminded of the olympic park bombing in atlanta. the other thing this call to mind is somebody leaving a backpack, and it turned out to be someone who was a whi supremacist convicted of this, leaving a backpack on a bench in portland, waiting for the martin luther king parade to come by and the device was to be remotely set off, but it was

found by a city employee and safely taken away. so unfortunately, people have been thinking about doing these sorts of things before. >> obviously a perverse notion to begin with, leaving a device behind that would blow up in a public place, but the further perversion of doing this to this event on this day under the noses of all of the assembled law enforcement in boston is beyond bodacious. >> well, and, of course, who knows? if it turns out that one of these was right outside a hotel, i suppose you have the possibility, that somebody planned this before the security was in place, had it somewhere else and brought it out at the time. there are lots of scenarios here we could come up with. until we know how they did it, there's lots of possibilities to think about. >> pete, the way 9/11 has

changed life because it happened, a lot of it, gradually, we haven't even come to grips with it in sum. you can't go to a royals game in kansas city or a dodgers game in l.a. without being checked. it has changed a lot. we're looking at the governor of massachusetts as he gets ready to address the media. sorry, pete williams, we're going to take this live feed. >> where we've had a horrific attack here in boston this afternoon. commissioner davis is going to give some details about what we know so far. mindful that we don't have the whole picture yet. but we have gotten a good deal of information. mr. daveis will take us through the information that we have and i'll talk about some of the

things and the ways in which we'll ask people to help us help you this afternoon. so let me turn it now over to ed davis, commissioner of police here in boston. >> thank you, governor. at 2:50 p.m. today, there were simultaneous explosions that occurred along the route of the boston marathon near the finish line. these explosions occurred 50 or 100 yards apart. and each scene resulted in multiple casualties. at this point in time, all of the victims have been removed from the scene. we have sent officers to hospitals to be in touch with family members. we activated a system of response that the commonwealth of mass chute and tachusetts ha.

my first call was to the special agent in charge of the fbi and to the captain of the state police, they immediately sent resources. we have at this point in time determined that there has been a third incident that has occurred. there was an explosion that occurred at the jfk library. so this is very much an ongoing event at this point in time. we are not certain that these incidents are related, but we are treating them as if they are. we're recommending to people that they stay home, that if they're in hotels in the area, that they return to their rooms and that they don't go any place and congregate in large crowds. we want to make sure we completely stabilize this situation. we are setting up two telephone numbers that are very important. the first one is for families of victims and people who are trying to locate people. that number is 617-635-4500.

that's the mass hot line. the second number, if anyone saw anything at this incident, if anybody knows of any information that could lead to the arrest and prosecution of the individual responsible for this, they should call us at 1-800-494-tips. that's 1-800-494-tips. that line will be staffed up tonight along with the fbi and the state police. we are working with the alcohol, tobacco and firearms, we have a general here from the massachusetts national guard who has assisted in securing the perimeter. and we have additional assets from other agencies who are volunteering to assist us. after this incident occurred, there was certainly a lot of people who were running from the scene. some of them deposited bags and parcels that they were carrying. each one of those bags and parcels is being treated as a

suspicious device at this point in time. we have multiple dod teams checking these bags, but at this point we've not found another device. the three incidents that occ occurr occurred, two occurred simultaneously on boylston street and the third one at jfk about a half hour ago. people should be calm, but they should understand this is an ongoing event and they should understand that we need all the information that we can get available to us. thank you. >> thank you very much. i want to thank the commissioner. i had a call from the president about half an hour ago who assured us that we would have full cooperation of the fbi, the atf who are also on the ground. we have, as the commissioner said, the state police, the national guard fully deployed and we thank them for their assistance. the fire marshal, the city fire

marshal is here as well. so a lot of coordination in a very fluid situation. we're asking that people stay out of crowds and calmly make their way home or if they're visiting, back to their hotels. all of the hotels, security will be prioritized at the outset. again, if people have information please use those tip lines. this is very, very important that we get as current information as we can as quickly as possible. take any questions. >> can you talk about marathon the significance of what happened here -- >> well, you know, the marathon is a pretty special day around here, as you know. i started this morning visiting mayor menino in the hospital who was devastated that he couldn't be at the marathon today.

he's on his way here now, am i right? from the hospital. so obviously he is as concerned as the rest of us are about the safety of the people who come to this iconic experience here in the city. >> -- reports looking for a specific type of truck or specific kind of person? >> no, there was no specific type of truck that we're looking for at this point in time. we are looking for any information people have as to what they saw or might have heard at the site of the explosion or coming and going. we're investigating all leads right now. >> what's the assessment? >> we don't have the number of casualties at this point. this is very early in this investigation. we wanted to get up here and give you as much information we have, but we can't tell you the number of people. >> a third explosion, but then the rumor that was a controlled explosion. do you know what that was? >> that was a controlled

explosion on boylston street. but there was a third incident at the jfk library that we believe was related. >> any word as to what was found? >> as i explained earlier, there are a number of parcels that have been brought by people on the parade route, on the race route. anything out there right now is being viewed as a suspicious device. we're clearing each one of those items with the aod team. they may be blowing things up over the course of the next few hours, but as of this point of time we have not found another device on boylston street? >> anything this morning about the threat. >> none. we talk about the threat picture all the time that leads up to this particular event. we have no information that this was going to happen. >> can you tell us what happened at jfk? >> it's literally just unfolding. i don't have specifics. there was an explosion. >> that was earlier. around 3:00 there was a fire there.

was there something after that? >> we got reports after 3:00 there was an explosion. >> any injuries at the jfk library? >> none that we know of. >> they said there was an attack. would you say this was a terrorist attack? >> we're not being definitive on this right now, but you can reach your own conclusions based upon what happened. >> -- contact the police trying to claim responsibility? >> at this point, no. every asset of the commonwealth of massachusetts and the federal government is either here or coming here. as the governor said, the president has talked directly to the mayor as well as the governor. and i had a personal conversation with the director of the fbi who pledged any help that we needed. so we are stabilizing the situation at this point in time. but people should be cautious. that's all. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we're going to try to do our next briefing at 7:00. that will be two hours from now. so 7:00 next briefing.

the way to come in and out is to my left, your right, going to be the way to enter in and out. and again, we're looking at 7:00 we'll do our next briefing. >> so that is the -- that's the situation you heard from deval patrick, the governor of the commonwealth of massachusetts and the police commissioner. we have a bit of a disagreement. the source for the word of an explosion at the jfk library, which is rather far from boylston, downtown boston, is the commissioner himself. we have known about what came in as an electrical fire in an equipment room at the library. the national archives, which runs the system of presidential libraries, is not confirming this as an explosion related to the marathon explosion. so a bit of a disagreement. so the source on that terrorist explosion is the chief of police.