breaking news out of las vegas where there's been a mass shooting. we'll send you back and good morning, everyone. i'm matt lauer alongside savannah guthrie in new york. we are on the air early to bring you the latest on breaking news coming from las vegas, and it is terrible and tragic news. there's been a deadly mass shooting in an outdoor country music harvest festival. >> this happened just after 1:00 eastern time, about 10:00 p.m. local time in las vegas near the mandalay bay resort and casino on the strip. jason aldean was performing. this was the finale of a three-day outdoor country music festival when the found of automatic gunfire erupted. [ sound of gunfire ] >> you can hear it on that tape. a lot of people at the concert have already told us they sort it was some sort of

or fireworks. it turned out to be gunfire coming from a high floor. during a news conference the sheriff of clark county announced that more than 20 people are dead, more than 100 others wounded. officials say the gunman was on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay resort firing down with what has been described as an automatic weapon, a submachine gun, at the crowd below. police eventually got up to the 32nd floor of that hotel. they breached the door of that room, and the gunman is now dead. >> police do know who this person is. they have not identified him publicly. they've just said it's a local resident of nevada, las vegas. there's a search under way for a woman who was traveling with him. authorities called her his companion. her name marilou danley. >> we also know that she is 62 years old. we understand, again, we're not

identifying the suspect, but he is said also to be in his 60s. and now we apparently are able to identify the suspect. pete williams has that information. pete? >> reporter: matt, we've been told by several investigative agencies that the man they believe fired the shots is 64-year-old steven paddock, stephen paddock, of mesquite, nevada. authorities are now searching his house in mesquite, they have told us and the databases indicate this as well, that the woman they're looking for, mary lou danley lived with him. we don't know what their relationship was but the police described her as the companion or roommate. they were apparently living together. we don't know how long. we believe she is 62. you had asked me earlier whether he was known to the authorities. i have not heard any

known to them but i'm told that he did have a criminal past and was known to local law enforcement in nevada. what that criminal past is i don't know at this point but apparently his name was familiar to them. this doesn't help answer the big question here of why. there's no indication so far at this early stage that this was a terror attack. we're coming up now on, what, roughly -- >> five hours. >> reporter: five hours since this happened. they're obviously looking through his house, looking to see when he planned this, why he did it, whether they can find any indication of that but no known connection to terrorism at this point. but clearly that's an important question they're trying to answer and there's heavy involvement here from federal agencies to help the local authorities who remain in charge of this investigation. >> and, as always, pete, in

there are a lot of conflicting reports. we've had people tell us that this shooting lasted between five and ten minutes. other people say this went on for almost an hour. do you have any indication, pete, that when police finally got to the 32nd floor the mandalay bay hotel and breached the door, did they get involved in any kind of a gunfight with mr. paddock? was he still shooting out the window? how did this all end? >> reporter: i don't know the answer to that, matt. that's a good question. the police earlier had said he was dead. whether he shot himself or whether he shot him, i don't know the answer to that. >> and as we understand it, the suspect, stephen paddock, lived with the woman of interest that police now seek, her name marilou danley. there are conflicting reports. we just don't know definitively whether or not she was actually in las vegas tonight, whether she was part of this or even at the hotel. this is an open question at this

another aspect as we play that videotape again and, more importantly perhaps, listen to the sounds that we're hearing coming from that videotape. this is the sound of gunfire we're not really accustomed to hearing. we have, unfortunately, in the past heard incidents where there have been mass shootings but the sound of the gunfire is different than what we're hearing on this tape. take me through that. >> reporter: right. this is the sound of gunfire you would hear from iraq or afghanistan from the u.s. military, automatic weapons fire. that means that somebody is holding the trigger down and the weapon just continues to fire as fast as it can chamber a new round and get it out of the muzzle. these weapons are heavily restricted by the federal government. it's illegal to own a weapon that can fire like that unless it's registered with atf, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, fire and

agencies assisting here. they're doing an emergency trace to try to figure out where that weapon came from. it's possible to acquire a weapon made to fire automatically like that. the u.s. military uses them extensively overseas. it's also possible to buy a weapon that isn't intended to fire that way and then modify it, make certain changes to the inside. if you're experienced with firearms, it's not a difficult thing to do. it's illegal to do that, but it's not a difficult thing to do. so that's one of the questions we're going to have to get answered here is what weapon was this, what the caliber of the weapon was, when this person acquired it, how many rounds he had with him. these are all questions that are going to be pretty easy to answer here in the coming hours. we just don't have the answers yet. >> as you and i and savannah talked about earlier getting a weapon like that into a place like a

everybody going in and out is either carrying or wheeling some sort of a suitcase that is not, unfortunately, a very big challenge. >> reporter: no, and people check into hotels in las vegas with all kinds of things, golf clubs, tennis rack eets, it's n unusual to see big pieces of luggage. people are carrying firearms with them all over the country all of the time. they're in their vehicles, you know, the one place you can't take them is on an airplane, but you can check them onto an airplane. but that's not the case here because the suspect, stephen paddock, and also the woman who they're eager to find, marilou danley, lived nearby, lived near las vegas in the community of mesquite, nevada. and as i mentioned

searching his home looking for the two cars that were registered to him, a hyundai and pacifica touring vehicle. they're asking people to keep a sharp eye out for those vehicles because they want to find them as well because they may hold important evidence as well. >> pete williams, as usual, every time we talk to pete he has new information. pete, we thank you very much. >> we now know the name of the suspect, stephen paddock, 64 years old. joe fryar is actually in a hotel room very close to the mandalay bay, actually part of that complex from a vantage point very similar to the one we believe the shooter had. joe, good morning. what can you tell us? >> reporter: hey there, savannah, good morning. we're staying in the four seasons which is part of the mandalay bay tower so the window that we're looking out of right now is on the 38th floor so six floors above where the shooter

i'm not sure are you able to see the shot right now? >> yes, we can see your shot. >> reporter: i'm holding that shot right now. so this is what we're doing from the 38th floor. we're looking over the concert venue. this is basically the block that's kitty corner from the mandalay bay, this is our vantage point. as i zoom in here i will show you as i get tighter, that's the stage where jason aldean was performing. that was sort of closer to the mandalay bay. and then as we move to the left, that's where all the crowd was. so you can see at least from where we are on the 38th floor, you can pretty much see everything that was going on inside this concert. you can see a lot of people from this viewpoint. now we don't know if the shooter was six floors directly below us, to the left of us, or to the right of us. as i pan off here you'll get a better idea of just sort of where the mandalay bay is. you can see there's a lot more rooms off to the right of where we are and a little bit of some of the rooms to the left. as we look to the left -- >> joe, a

said that as they were facing the stage they felt the shots were coming obviously from behind them but from the right side. does that make sense with what you're seeing? >> reporter: based on what we believe to be the stage, the shots actually came from behind the stage so from where looking at if the fans were facing the stage the shots would have been coming from their right or in front of them but more than likely their right. that's what would have made sense is they would have been looking forward on the stage and the shots would have been coming from the right side of where they were. >> joe, thank you very much. stand by there because we have another eyewitness on the phone. >> we're joined now by jake owen who actually performed at that country music festival just before jason aldean. he joins us, as savannah mentioned, on the phone. jake, thank you for joining us. how are you doing? >> thankfully we're do

unfortunately, there's a lot that aren't. it's been a pretty crazy evening here in las vegas. i think we're all still trying to process. >> jake, you had performed earlier. you were not on the stage when this happened. where were you. >> no, i was on the stage. i had just walked up on the stage with a couple friends of mine including one being luke combs, another artist, we were standing 50 feet away from where jason was on stage and all of a sudden you heard what sounded -- you know, it was the thing where, is that gunfire? and it got faster and faster, it sounded like an automatic rifle. you could hear it ringing off the tops of the rafters of the stage. that's when you saw people fleeing and at that point everyone on stage started running everywhere possible. and it was pretty chaotic for sure. >> where

seek cover? >> unfortunately, i ran on the opposite direction from where my usual shelter would be which is my bus which was on the opposite side of the stage. so i kind of ran like everyone else. at one point i was crouched down behind a parked car with about 20 other people that were just people had come to the show and everyone's asking if everyone is okay. there's blood on people and you could see a couple folks on the street that looked like they'd been shot lying there. i mean, it was like a movie that you feel like you've seen before that's not real life. >> i know when something like that happens, i imagine time is really hard to even get a grasp on. but we're interested in it because it does sound like from other witnesses we talked to that this went on for some time. if you had to guess, h

from when you first heard the sounds to when the shooting finally stopped? how long do you think it took place for? >> without even over exaggerating i would say it was close -- it had to have been close to ten minutes because -- it went on for a good four or five minutes before i got back, luckily, to a bus that was safe in a crew parking lot. i got back to a bus. once i got on the bus we were hiding in the bus because you could still hear gunfire outside. it wasn't something that just was quick. it was chaos for seven to ten minutes. >> were you able to get back in touch with all your friends and fellow performers, or is there still difficulty because everybody scattered in so many different directions? >> there was after a while -- recently my store manager and manager got back over to where i am now. we were all separated. a fri

her family for a 50th birthday, just like a lot of other people that come out to these concerts. that's what it's about to get to live this freedom thing for the men and women that fight for us and we live this life of not being scared, which i think is great. but this is reality these days. this stuff is really happening. we were all scared. and i do think it's important to say, too, the las vegas police department, responders, you could tell they did everything they could to get out here as quickly as possible and take care of people. they need a shout out as well. >> i heard somebody, jake, earlier talk about the staff of the concert venue, the people who were working who normally would help guide you into a concert venue and that person said they reacted with great calm and they really seemed to try to do everything they could to help people get out

area. we thank them as well. jake, we're happy you're okay and, again, we thank you for joining us on the phone this morning. >> thank you, guys. just keep everybody in your prayers. >> we will. >> jake, thank you. let's go to clint van zandt, a former fbi profiler. when you see the images and hear the sound of the gunfire, what strikes you as somebody with a trained ear and eye? >> well, first of all, as you've been discussing with your other guests, it seems to be an automatic weapon and, you know, we make a lot in this country about assault rifles but most of the time when law enforcement goes up against something they're going up against a semiautomatic weapon you have to pull the trigger every time. this individual appears, from my experience, it sounds like a fully automatic weapon. and your last guest suggesting that this went on for five to ten minutes. if you realize

or 30 rounds perhaps, this individual had to have so many magazines of ammunition and have so much time. as you know, something like this is alclcalculated. he figured out how many rounds he could fire and how long it would take law enforcement to respond. that's a terrible mathematics that someone has to do. this morning it was mathematics that spelled life and death for dozens of people. >> clint, i guess it was probably a couple hours ago now that police revealed the name of this woman they're looking for, this marilou danley. and it's unclear, still, whether or not she was at the hotel or just somebody that lived with the suspect here. are you surprised that we haven't heard -- that she's turned herself in -- there's been no resolution? it feels like a long time in the sense if this w

hey, i know nothing about this, you'd think she would have already called police by now and we'd have more information. do you find anything suspicious there or am i overreading into it? >> well, what we usually find with mass shooters is there may be planning right up until the time of the shooting. there is usually poor planning on a getaway plan. they may have discussed by themselves if one or the other is captured or killed they'll have our names. so don't go back to the house. don't go to the apartment. use a switch car, a rental car. she could have just jumped in a car and drove out toward the desert right now for all law enforcement knows and realize it's in the middle of the night out there so it makes searching for somebody like this very difficult. >> that presumes she is somehow involved. that's what i was zeroing in. if we don't know she is somebody who just knows the suspect

that was somehow involved, that's what i'm trying to figure out. >> yeah, yeah, and i think the point is something like this could be carried off by one person. look, looking for his two vehicles, they have police officers scouring the parking lots. as most of us know having been in las vegas there could be hundreds, thousands of cars that could be parked there and they have to use computer aided search for someone entering a paid parking lot or if they're parked on a street somewhere else, that search continues until they find the two vehicles and until they find the second person of interest, they're not going to know what they have. and, of course, we're all concerned with the life and death of the individuals, those wounded, but we want to know motive. was this so-called terrorism involved? you and i can say it's an obvious act of terrorism.

and injured. but we need to know the motive of the shooter. and if there's anything else planned to take place after this terrible event. >> can i go back to the weapon here for a second and use your expertise. first of all, is this a weapon that would require any kind of real training to use? also, what would the typical caliber of a weapon like this be because if you're shooting from 300 feet in the air and 100 or so yards away out in the distance, i'm just curious as to how lethal this weapon is at that distance, and would you be aiming at anything in particular or just an area. >> well, number one, it was likely a military assault-style weapon. that's something we would call an m-16 or some hybrid or lookalike of an m-16 or ak-47. the staccato of the shots sounds fast

but it's going to be somewhere in that range, unfortunately, of a typical assault rifle that we see here in america. as far as the killing field, which is what this really is, matt -- this is somebody taking an automatic weapon and spraying -- it's like a fire hose perhaps where they're hosing back and forth and they're not really aiming at a particular person but they're aiming at everyone. so anyone they hit at this particular time qualifies to them as a target and, again, until we find out motive, we don't know was he after some particular person in the room or after anyone, therefore he was after everyone. >> tom costello was just speculating that a weapon that sounds the way this one does and presumably has the caliber it does because we know it was able

people killed today, that might have been set up on a tripod of some sort because of the significant kickback, it would be hard for one individual to hold it. does that make sense to you? >> it could. it could have a bi-pod, hooked on either side for stability as you're shooting down. we haven't seen mass shooters do that but this shooter could be capable of anything. a bi-pod could attach to the barrel of a rifle and that would be simple to do. the mentality is someone playing out this terrible video game in his mind, spraying the bullets when the weapon is held to the shoulder. there's a mentality that goes with this onc

shooting. he or she reminds how they've practiced. we've so many that will use video games that practice mass shootings and, of course, could this be a military veteran? i guess it could. but also in mass shootings when they use practice games to do this it allows you to numb yourself to the tremendous loss of human life that takes place in this occurrence. >> clint, please stand by. we have more information to share. we were talking with pete williams a few minutes ago asking if he had any information on how this shooter was killed. we know, though, that the police located the room at the mandalay bay where the shooting was coming from on the 32nd floor. we know some kind of a s.w.a.t. team went up to that

breached the door, and we can now say we know the shooter was killed by the police, that this was not a situation where the shooter, stephen paddock, took his own life. we know that he was taken down by law enforcement. >> pete williams has also talked about the fact this individual was known to police. now the nature of that we don't know. whether there was a criminal past or the local authorities in mesquite, nevada, where he presumably lived were familiar with him for whatever reason but this was someone that they were familiar with. >> and we heard earlier that when police initially responded to this they were beat police officers. they had handguns as the weapons they were carrying. we had someone say they were severely outgunned. it took a little time to get a s.w.a.t. team, a more tactical team to that hotel and get them up 32 floors in an elevator to where they could take out the shooter. >> we've been showi

and you have to just focus on them for a moment and it helps convey what a horrible situation this was. scores of concert goers shooting that goes on for several minutes. police are trying to identify where the shooter is. you can see how people would crouch down when the shooting began and then as a pause when he reloads his clip, they would try to run for their lives. a horrific situation. >> if you're just waking up it's 6:24 on the east coast, 3:24 out west, waking up to tragic news of a mass shooting in las vegas, nevada, at an outdoor country music festival, a harvest festival, that had been going on for three days. jason aldean was on the stage when someone on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay resort began to open fire with wha

weapon. this news obviously shocking. i want to go to peter alexander who is at the white house in washington and how is the news being received there, peter? >> reporter: matt, nothing from president trump on twitter, which is often where he would go in the case of situations like this to quickly communicate his thoughts about a crisis of this kind. we've reached out to some of his top advisers and we'll let you know as soon as he has been briefed. we have not confirmed he's been briefed yet. his briefing is not scheduled until later this morning. in a situation like this it's likely the president would be alerted very early on to the circumstances. this is a president who has been tested on a variety of fronts but this would be the first mass shooting he's forced to respond to. there was the shooting in d.c. about 15 weeks ago where steve scalise was shot, who heroically

he's not been at the helm during a situation like this. in the past during the course of the campaign, the president would be quick to respond often before authorities had communicated their thoughts on the situation, even overseas suggesting it was another act of terrorism, radical islamic terrorism. so far nothing from president trump. we've reached out to his top advisers and will let you know as soon as they communicate to us he has been alerted to what's taking place. >> peter alexander at the white house monitoring what's going on right now. we know more than 20 people have been killed. 100 or more injured in this mass shooting that took place just after 10:00 local time at a country music festival being held outdoors as a shooter on the 32nd floor of a hotel just adjacent to this outdoor festival area opened fire and inflicted mass carnage. >> imagine the wheels turning as part of this investigation right now. stephen paddock

the shooter, 64 years old from mesquite, nevada. police are looking for his roommate, a 62-year-old woman named marilou danley. here is the picture of her now. they have not been able to locate her since. there were some reports earlier that she was seen in that hotel. we believe that was a report that came from an eyewitness after police perhaps circulated with her picture and was seen here with an older gentleman as well. we presume that older gentleman was mr. paddock. mr. paddock is dead but -- and there's a search, we should mention, going on at his residence in mesquite, nevada, right now. >> authorities are on the lookout for two cars, two vehicles that were associated with him. a hyundai and a chrysler pacifica touring vehicle. so they're looking for that. this is an active investigation and the big question looms this morning, why? why would a gunman open fire on people enjoying a concert on

we'll continue our coverage here. you've been watching an nbc news special report. much more as we continue in just a moment. >> announcer: you're watching ne"news4 today." good morning. it's 6:28 right now. we'll get back to that special report on the mass shooting in las vegas. first, we want to get you out the door on time with an update on weather and traffic. chuck bell is here with what's going on outside. chuck, good morning. >> good morning, eun and aaron and good morning everybody. monday off to a quiet start. high pressure is large and in charge for our weather for most if not all of the upcoming week. rain chances remain close to zero probably through the work and school week. chilly too. even low 40s at dulles airport at 41 this morning. as you plan out the door, cool but bright and

sunshine all day with a high of 75 degrees. aly bit of a warming trend. we should be in the 830s thursday and friday. next best chance for rain is a week away. now over to jack taylor. >> we've got troubles on the beltway. the first issue on the inner loop of the beltway as you head up towards braddock road. earlier activity with a bus overheated. left lane is blocked on scene. be aware. inner loop 236, three or four vehicles involved in a crash. outer loop topside, our crash on the ramp to georgia avenue. stay left to get by on the ramp for now. downtown on the freeway westbound leaving the third street tunnel, a new crash. towards main avenue. back to you. >> thanks to jack there. we, of course, will bring you another local update in about 30 minutes or so. don't forget to turn on the alerts on the nbc washington app right now for continuing coverage of the vegas concert attack. >> you can also follow nbc washington on twitter and

i know you're curious about what's happening in our area. we'll send it back to matt lauer and good morning, everybody, 6:30 on the east coast. it's 3:30 a.m. out on the west coast. we continue our nbc news special coverage of a terrible situation in las vegas. a gunman on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay casino opening fire on a crowd of concert goers enjoying a concert by jason aldean, who you see on stage. this is the moment it happened. you start to hear the gunfire. gunfire that went on for several minutes. and we know now at least 20 people were killed, more than 100 injured as this terrible attack

sounds you're hearing right now that is by all accounts automatic weapons fire. that is a highly sophisticated, highly regulated weapon in this country. and this person, stephen paddock, was on the 32nd floor simply firing indiscriminately at a packed crowd of country music fans below. pete williams has been tracking down his sources, giving us new information all morning long on a story that happened about five hours ago. pete, what's the latest you can tell us? >> reporter: we're told now, matt, that when the authorities entered his hotel room they found several weapons. we don't know yet what kind of weapons those were, and we know there's an urgent trace going on to try to figure out what the weapons were. one question here is we know that he's dead and the

federal authorities i've been talking to is that he was shot by the police that breached the room, but we're working to confirm that whether he shot himself or whether he was shot by the authorities. we think he was shot by the police when they basically blew the door open into his hotel room. once they figured out where the shots were coming from. the suspect, stephen paddock, 64 years old, born april 9, 1953. lived in mesquite, nevada, where a search is going on now of his house. this woman, marilou danley, was his roommate there and some eyewitnesses have said they saw the two of them together at the hotel. but now there's a lot of work going on. it's pretty hard to travel anywhere in america without leaving a record. you buy gas, if you use a credit card at the gas station, if you check into the hotel, if you buy something on the road with your credit card. that's going to leave

so one of the tasks of the federal authorities helping the police here will be to build a backwards time line to try to figure out when did he check into the hotel, did he rent the room? did she rent the room? did someone else rent the room? those are all important questions. and i say rent the room, i mean reserve the room, book the room. when did he get there, when did he buy the weapons, those are all questions to be answered. no indication of the motive. no indication of terrorism, but they simply don't know why this happened. why did this man choose to shoot anybody much less this many people at this venue? we're told by the federal authorities that he was known to local law enforcement, paddock was, but in what capacity, whether it was some arrests, some complaints, we don't know the answer to that question yet. he was not on a federal radar list, a federal database of potential terror suspects but he

run-ins with police there. i don't know what the nature of those was. >> and unfair to ask you this, pete, because i know the information is sketchy. when we think he was shot by police, do we have any indication that he turned a weapon on police officers and exchanged any fire with them? >> reporter: i've heard no indication that any of the police involved in breaching the room were injured. now we have heard reports that there were off-duty police officers from several podsedniks at the concert, just attending like any other concert goer, and some of them were shot. i've heard no indication of police being injured or shot in blowing the door open into the hotel room and shooting him. >> pete williams, stand by. thank you very much. from the university medical center in las vegas, some of the wounded are being treated. denita, good morning to you. >> good morning, matt. >> can you tell me how many people you're treating now and give me some sort

their conditions might be? >> sure. we have received upwards of 50 people here at the umc trauma center. it's a standalone trauma center. and on that side of our hospital we received about 30 patients, many of those were critically injured, two of those patients, unfortunately, passed away. several people also drove themselves here to our emergency department which is on a separate side of umc here. we have a very large campus, and they were treated -- >> danita, sorry to interrupt. this is the sheriff joseph lombardo. >> now the number of injured, i do not know yet. we are looking at in excess of 50 individuals dead and over 200 individuals injured at this point. that is why i'm portraying it in that manner. now the suspect, i am going to provide you his identity at this point. his name is stephen

last name spelled p-a-d-d-o-c-k, with a date of dirth 4/9/1953. as far as his history and background we haven't complete that had yet. we've located numerous firearms within the room that he occupied and that's like i stated earlier will be a long and tedious investigation. now we're bringing in all the resources of the fbi to assist us in this investigation. in particular to witness victim advocates and csi to help process the scene ensuring we are getting all the evidence we can possibly obtain. furthermore, i want to provide you the phone number i said i would provide in the first briefing. that number for family and friends to get an update on loved ones is 1-866-535-5654.

one more time, 1-866-535-5654. obviously this is a tragic incident. one that we have never experienced in this valley. so what we're going to try to do is the best we can to get our first responders back on their feet responding and conducting the proper investigation and ensure that we have the safety of this community at heart. my condolences go out to the loved ones that lost their lives and their families, and we will do the best we can to make it as easy as possible to get you information as we know it. i think it's important for you to see the fbi county fire. it shows we have full support of all the government entities to solve this situation as soon as possible. >> any sense of motive?

>> how many officers [ inaudible ]? >> i don't know yet because there's some officers from other jurisdictions that were attending the concert, so i don't have an accurate number of that yet. >> have you gotten an update on your officers? >> one was critical but he's stable and one of my officers was off duty attending the concert and lost his life. >> can you give us details? >> no, i don't have any more details on the firearms. all we know they were rifles and that's all i know at this point. we're executing a search warrant on the room as we speak. >> [ inaudible ]. how are you doing? >> we're holding up. we're going to do the best we can. i don't want to say that's what we're paid to do because no one is paid to do what we're experiencing now. they're doing a fantastic job and we'll have to look out for their well-being moving forward. >> you said there were

paddock's room? >> in the room of the hotel. we have officers at his residence and will execute a search warrant shortly. >> how do you recover from this? moving forward. >> that's a hard question to answer at this point. it's too early in the process and please give us time so we can do a good job. thank you. i will provide an update on a regular basis at approximately a two-hour window at a time. as you can imagine -- >> a freeze of our signal. that was joseph lombardo, the clark county sheriff with jurisdiction over the las vegas area, and he has just delivered -- >> the phone number i provided, we will get that information out, but right now i'm not comfortable providing that information because we're overwhelmed in the medical services at all the hospitals right now. united blood services has responded and o

their personnel on the ground and more people in place we'll be able to provide that info. [ inaudible ]. >> looking for their loved ones. [ inaudible ]. >> yes, ma'am. there's two locations where they have been responding, one is at south central area command in close proximity to the mandalay bay and here. preferably we would like them to come to police headquarters on martin luther king so they're not responding with people in that area. >> and the families, what kind of emotion? >> all right, thank you very much. have a good night. >> we've been listening to a briefing from joseph lombardo, the clark county sheriff, and he has delivered devastating news that we now know more than 50 people have been killed in this mass shooting in las vegas. the suspect dead, stephen paddock, shot by police after opening fire on a crowd of

devastating, even more so when you consider we spoke to danita cohen at the las vegas medical center just seconds before that news conference and she was telling us that that medical center is treating 30 people who are in critical condition. you get a sense how high this toll may actually go. >> more than 200 injured and as you mentioned some of them with grave wounds. some people having to drive themselves to nearby hospitals. more than 50 killed, among them an off-duty police officer who worked for the sheriff. you could hear his voice shake. this is just an absolutely devastating incident that's taken place. importantly because we've been following this all morning, the police have said now they believe they are in touch with this woman who was the person of interest, marilou danley, that somehow they are in contact with her.

to find out what's happening there. they believe they've found the two vehicles. the other piece of information it sounds like this was a hotel room with numerous firearms. >> that's right. to put this in perspective, i believe we just passed the one-year anniversary of the pulse nightclub shooting down in orlando where a gunman walked into that packed nightclub and killed 49 people. we now know in las vegas that upwards of 50 people have been killed in this shooting. it would make it the worst mass shooting in u.s. history. >> and we are still counting the toll. i mean, honestly, you have thousands of concert goers sitting and just being fired upon from the 32nd floor of a hotel with a high-powered rifle and automatic weapon. as described by our law enforcement experts. it kind of takes your breath away as we've just learnedf

the scope of the carnage here. >> do we still have danita cohen available to us? danita, we apologize. we broke away there to listen to the sheriff. >> she's from the university medical center. >> exactly. you were talking about the patients you're treating, the number of patients and the severity of their injuries. >> hi again, matt and savannah. you were mentioning the pulse nightclub shooting. ironically just a few months ago we had one of the emergency room physicians from that shooting here at our hospital doing a debrief with our trauma team and emergency physicians. we are always on constant stand by as trauma center fully equipped to take care of very unfortunate mass casualties. this evening we did receive about 50 patients, about 30 of those went through our trauma center. many of those are still in the o.r. as i talk to you right now. some patients have, thankfully, been discharged but many admitted because of their injuries.

>> the people who were brought to your hospital, two of those are deceased, so those we are assuming are those counted in the number of people that the sheriff just talked about? >> correct. those are counted in that number, passed away here at umc would be two patients. some are critical, some discharged, many in the operating room or recovering from their injuries. >> do you have any sense of how many of the scores of people that have come in how many are critical and in surgery needing that kind of traumatic intervention? >> about 12 patients were critically injured. i spoke with one of our trauma surgeons and he said he just kept the operating room doors wide open and was ready for the next patient and the next patient. this is exactly why our trauma surgeons are trained the way that they are. you might recall a few years ago

13 patients come in from that unfortunate incident. we make sure everybody stays safe and returns home healthy. >> well, if anybody has ever had the opportunity or the occasion to tour a level one trauma center, they are extremely impressive places staffed with very impressive people. and we know you've got a long day and days ahead of you, dania. we thank you for taking the time this morning. >> i will share your support with the rest of the team in the trauma center as we speak. >> please do, danita. when we heard the sheriff talking on the other part of this there are so many people who aren't sure if their loved ones are okay and don't know if perhaps someone they knew who was at the concert is among those who did not survive this

so this is just a horrific, horrific incident that took place in las vegas last night, more than 50 people killed, more than 200 injured. we're still trying to assess and count the toll. >> police earlier on at a previous news conference were putting a call out to anyone who was at that concert or in that hotel who perhaps took some cell phone video that could be of help in their investigation. i think their investigation has probably turned now into the background of this suspect who is dead, stephen paddock, and his associate or roommate or whatever you want to call her. but they are asking anyone with cell phone video who captured any images from the time during that shooting to please review the footage, see if it's significant, and turn it over to them. >> and the las vegas strip, no doubt, lots of closed circuit television cameras, no doubt the

these are just the very early hours, but police will be able to put together their investigation and have a very good idea of the movements of this suspect. but what we don't know and may not know for some time if ever is the motive. what on earth would possess someone to go into the top of a hotel room and just open fire on people trying to sit and listen to an outdoor concert in the closing days of summer/early fall. >> this festival had been going on for three days, a harvest festival. a lot of country music stars had taken part in it. we talked to jake owen earlier. we know jason aldean was performing at the time this happened. we don't know how long stephen paddock was in that hotel, when he checked in, what he was planning, but we do know that at some point he either shot out the window of his hotel room or broke it in some other fashion and aimed what sounds like an automatic weapon

below, probably 300 plus feet below and 100 yards or so in the distance and just began firing. as we heard from a couple people this morning with an automatic weapon you pull the trigger and you wait for that weapon to run through the rounds in the clip and then you change the clip and in this case it seems like he did it several times. one witness said it seemed four or five minutes and another said a period of ten minutes or so. it took the police a little while to figure out where the shots were coming from and then triangulate, identify the exact room. a s.w.a.t. team did get up in the elevator of the hotel, breached the doorway, possibly with some explosive device. we don't know if there was any gunfire exchanged with the suspect. we do know now that the police, it seems, were responsible for killing stephen paddock. >> let's go to clint van zandt, former fbi profiler, law enforcement expert, who can talk

difficult a situation this would have been. the first calls to come in you have a shooting going on at an outdoor festival. i'm sure the initial thought was somebody there at the festival, how would police have determined where the shots were coming from, how difficult is that to go ahead, find a room, find the person, and make it stop, clint? >> well, this is very challenging, i think, at first. realize the shooter was on the 32nd floor. if you and i stand and look at any hotel you're looking at windows, at floors. somebody has to count up, somebody counts sideways. it could be someone went past the room and heard the firing. but it would have taken law enforcement in this situation a while to find the exact room and realize every second that it took them to find the room there were more people being shot and killed. as matt has just pointed out this, unfortunately, has become the largest or the highest amount o

shooting, just surpassed orlando. also, i was at virginia tech at the time of the shooting back in '07. that was 32. and we all know the 27 young children who died at sandy hook. the only reason i give you those numbers is because we've encountered some mass shooters that are doing just that, looking for the number, and it's very easy to find when they go on the internet. motive is going to be the challenge here. we understand it's a fully automatic weapon. we know you can get those or if you know what you're doing you can change a weapon to fully automatic. it's not hard to get one into a hotel room. people lug dozens of bags to their room every day. of course you can't run everything through a metal detector so this is yet one more challenge for law enforcement once we identify the individual who we know and the motive, how do you stop someone from repeating this in the future? >> what

that? >> yeah, matt, let's say it sounds like it's relatively -- it's an automatic weapon, how heavy a caliber, we don't know. if it's your usual ar-16 or m-16, a military style weapon so many carried in the military or an an k-47 that we hear about all the time, those magazines they put into that weapon, that can either have 20 or perhaps 30 rounds. so for this individual to fire and one of your previous guests said it went on for five to ten minutes, if he went up there with just ten magazines, that's potentially 300 rounds that he probably could have fired easily in a time period of three to five minutes. >> and, clint, you pulled the trigger on an automatic weapon with a magazine of 20 or 30 rounds in it, how long does it take to empty that out, just a

>> oh, just seconds, matt. you could dump those rounds in 10-12 seconds and, i mean, if you've even practiced this, and we hate to say it but we see mass shooters sometimes will practice, you can practice, dump that empty magazine, go to a new magazine, you can do that in just a second or two, reload and keep doing this. matt, you've developed information, pete williams has, that the shooter is 64 years old. the average mass shooter in the united states, matt, is 35 years old. so this individual is almost twice the age of the statistical probability. now in a situation like this we don't care. we want to identify the particular shooter, but our youngest mass shooter is 11 years old. this may well be the oldest mass shooter, meaning at least four or more deaths. this may be the oldest in the country.

a couple records we hope no one ever tries to break. >> and the method here, clint, such a heinous method. and you mentioned virginia tech, you mentioned -- we talked about the pulse nightclub in orlando, those shooters were on the ground. they were walking in close proximity to the people they were targeting. and here's a guy 300 feet in the air shooting out of a window at just a sea of people. >> yeah, and realize, matt, we're talking the distance after football field away. so without any sighting device -- we don't know if he had a scope or something -- he's simply looking at a mass of people that can't get out, that can't move, and he's not accurately shooting. he's just spraying bullets like you would take a hose in your garden and water down flowers except he was mowing down human beings. >> clint van zandt, clint, thank you very much. i'm sure we're going to be talking to you several times over t

coming days. >> and we've been just covering a story that's unfolded over these last few hours. it started at 10:00 local time in las vegas last night. the third night of a three-day festival, a concert, outdoor music festival. jason aldean playing. all of a sudden the shots of gunfire and you hear it as we show you this video. you can hear that patter of the gunfire and this went on for several minutes. everyone who has heard it fluent in these matters says this is an automatic weapon, an illegal weapon. it has inflicted mass damage, more than 50 people killed. this makes it the deadliest shooting in u.s. history. more than 200 injured. the sense you got from the sheriff that is not a final number. they are still trying to assess how many people have lost their lives today. >> and they're desperately trying to save lives at the local university medical center, a level one trauma center. savannah

eyewitness earlier, probably a couple hours ago now, who described in a way what was going on as the shooting was occurring that i think bears repeating because it's something we've all heard of and can identify with. he said as the shots rang out it almost became that game of red light/green light where when the shots were ringing out, everybody froze and dove to the ground. and in the moments of silence, presumably while this gunman was changing magazines on his automatic weapon, in those moments of silence, people got to their feet and ran as far as they could run until the shots rang out again and then they dove to the ground again. it's just horrifying to imagine yourself in that situation for five or ten minutes. >> the terror also the gunfire is coming from above you and around you and it's an outdoor music festival and there isn't much

there weren't places to hide. i've seen witness accounts of people hiding under cars, but obviously just an incredibly terrifying situation and then imagine you're law enforcement there trying to figure out as fast as you can where is this shooting coming from? is it coming from a nearby hotel, what floor, which room, and they were able to find this suspect. they found him on the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay hotel. broke through the door, shot him dead and ended the carnage but not before so many people lost their lives. >> some of the eyewitnesses talked about there were some vending areas, areas where there were trailers like you would see at an amusement park or the state fair to the sides of the concert area where the crowd was standing and they ran and dove behind those vehicles just to get cover from these gunshots. you saw the shots of jason aldean continuing to play for a couple of seconds until he and the other musicians on stage realized exactly

on. listen. [ sounds of gunfire ] and then watch as he runs from the stage. obviously realizing the gravity of what was occurring. >> so many people said that because it took some time that they continued to play for a while. a lot of people thought it's the last night of the concert, it's fireworks, pyrotechnics. and then the realization of what actually had been going on. >> tom costello, are you still with us? >> reporter: hi, guys. i am with you, indeed. this is just absolutely obscene to watch a mass casualty and mass murder take place right there on the vegas strip. there aren't many words. i would remind us i think we've already gone through the fact this is the worst mass casualty shooting in u.s. history. the pulse nightclub in orlando lost 49 lives. virginia tech was 32. sandy hook was

cafeteria shooting in texas in 1991, 23 dead. so 50 or more people now dead in las vegas as this shooting took place. as i was watching that scene of jason aldean really leaving the stage in a hurry, it struck me he was fortunate. he had cover. but his audience did not have cover. they were sitting out there in that open arena outside at night with this gunman perched 32 floors above them. and he was able to just rain terror down on them and rain death down on them as well. the other thing that struck me as you were talking to the nurse at the local hospital, i, as you know, cover fire departments and police departments around the country, and these mass casualty incidents and preparing for them, drilling for them has become just part of their normal training. it doesn't matter how big or small the department is

this. i was talking to a friend of mine who is with a smaller fire department in colorado. they that very day were training for a mass casualty training incident. this is just america in 2017, unfortunately, as we are seeing yet another mass casualty shooting event play out in las vegas. what we still don't know is, of course, the suspect's motive. was it political, was it religious, was it some sort of a personal grudge? the fact that he is 64 years old it occurs to me, makes it unlikely that he is any sort of a recent war veteran. so where did he get hold that have kind of firepower is obviously very interesting. >> we know the victim's identity. it is stephen paddock, 64. and you can only imagine that every aspect of his life is now being looked at by law enforcement investigators, and they will know an awful lot about him in the coming hours that they did not know, unfortunately, prior to this shooting.

>> we're going to take a pause here in a moment, top of the hour we're going to continue our coverage. this has been an nbc news special report. thee worst mass shooting in u.s history. nbc news special report. the worst mass shooting in u.s. history. good morning. breaking news. a gunman opens breaking news. a gunman opens fire on an ñç outdoor concert crowd in las vegas. 200 others wounded. the gunman 32 floors up at the mandalay bay resort firing down on a terrified crowd. the shooter is 64-year-old stephen paddock, he was shot and killed by police, witnesses describing moments of pure panic. we have complete coverage today, monday, october 2nd, 2017.