our senior justice correspondent evan perez is joining us now monitoring the situation. , what are you learning? >> reporter: this is still an active situation and we heard that from police and at the scene reports have heard in the last few minutes, they've heard gunshots ringing out, seven or eight gunshots ringing out from the street and from the area where these -- the shooter or multiple shooters have been firing at police officers. again, we know that at least three police officers have been shot. have been injured. and there is multiple injuries of police officers who were there apparently responding to narcotics activity at this house. again, this is an area that is just north of the philadelphia center city. there is hospitals that are nearby a few blocks away, temple university hospital in particular has done a lockdown essentially telling the public to stay away from the scene. but right now we can see just from again some of the cameras that are there, there is still a massive police response. dozens of police cars and police officers still hiding behind shiel

i want to bring in our senior justice correspondent evan perez. let talk a little bit as dusk is falling and night is coming in philadelphia, that adds another layer for police on the scene. the difficulty, you know, i guess they will have to light up the area. they are trying to get the shooter to talk, trying to assure this shooter or perhaps shooters they said there could be more than one that they will not be harmed if they come out. what do we know about how all of this began, evan? >> well, according to the police, this began as some kind of a narcotics call, that these officers were responding to now we don't know exactly what the details are of that. we don't know if they were doing some operation to try to buy drugs from someone in order to essentially set up a case or bring charges against someone but it appears that the suspect or suspects was expecting these officers, and the officers were certainly caught unaware. so the chief there just described the -- i think it was police commissioner, he described the situation where officers wer

first let's go to our senior justice correspondent, evan perez. first of all, what are you learning about the stand-off in philadelphia? >> this is still a very dangerous stand-off just north of center city, philadelphia. here's what we know at this time. five officers have been shot. we don't know their conditions. it appears to be nonlife threatening injuries. in the last few minutes we saw just from some of the video that we're seeing from the scene, we saw that it appears that at least one or multiple suspects are firing from inside this house. dozens of officers have converged near temple city hospital. this began according to police as a police call as a result of narcotics activity. and then it appears that police were opened fire on by one or more suspects still inside this house. just a few minutes ago, we heard and we can see that shots were being fired just from video that we were able to see from the scene. right now we're showing you a wider shot in order to frequent lives of these police officers who are at the scene. they're hiding

evan perez, what are you hearing?tment looked into whether or not james comey mishandled classified information. it has to do with memos that comey wrote after his interactions with president trump early in the administration. after he was fired, he passed some memos to a friend of his, an attorney up in new york, who then provided some of that information to "new york times." the office of inspector general of the justice department has been looking into this. they referred comey for possible prosecution for mishandling the classified information. it turns out some of the information in those memoses the fbi later determined contained the lowest level of classification, which is confidenceal. so prosecutors decided that they could not bring a case, in part because they couldn't prove that comey knew at the time that there was classified information in there, and he was purposely mishandling this information. so the bottom line is there are not going to be any charges. of course you know, brooke, that the president ha

joining me now is evan perez. evan, what's the result?a lot about no collusion. this is a case of no intrusion. this is what the fbi has been saying since 2016. chuck grassley, senator grassley and senator johnson have been looking into this issue of whether or not there was any evidence of a hack by the chinese. now, what they did is they interviewed a couple of staffers from the inspector general for the intelligence community who had raised concerns about exactly this, about some activity that they believe indicated a possible hack. they were concerned really about how the state department was handling this information, whether they were downplaying it. according to grassley, they do believe that the state department was downplaying the importance of this information. in the end, though, the fbi maintains that there is no evidence of an intrusion by a foreign government, either the chinese or any other. this is what they said in 2016. this is what they said in 2017 when we asked. and i looked into this again in 2018. this is the same t

let's get straight to evan perez. tell us about this investigation. yeah, wow, right? so the inspector general of the justice department has been looking into among other things james comey's handling of some memos that he wrote over his interactions with then -- the beginning of president trump's term. he wrote multiple of these memos, two of them in particular were later determined by the justice department, by the fbi, to contain classified information at the lowest level, confidential level. this is the lowest level of classification. so what we're told is in recent weeks, the inspector general investigators decided that they would refer this for possible prosecution and justice department prosecutors have declined to bring charges against the former fbi director, james comey, in part because they determined that because the memos in question were not classified at the time, that they later were deemed to be classified and marked classified by the fbi, that they couldn't prove that james comey intended to violate the laws that govern the handling

cnn correspondent evan perez with new reporting on this. do we know what they were doing during that time? >> reporter: fbi is looking into all possibilities, including whether they were simply asleep, were they playing games on their phones? there's a lot of possibilities. one of the most interesting parts of this story, brianna, is several days after he was found dead on saturday morning, there are basic details of this story that the justice department, the bureau of prisons can't nail down. and one of the reasons is that some of the people who know what happened aren't talking. they've lawyered up. they are not cooperating with investigators. it's a very unusual situation. these are law enforcement officers. part of their job is to cooperate with an investigation and they're not doing it. the fbi is having an extra harder time to try to get basic details. how was he found? who found him? what happened? why is there video of what exactly what went on out of his cell, in the hallways there? there's a lot of big questions that people at th

>> my executive producer said according to evan perez, he found out that the guards hadn't checked on him for a number of hours. so how often should you be checked on? every at least half hour? >> i think the protocol is a half hour in that situation. also the specific unit in which he was housed, it's small it's maybe a hundred feet long or something like that. there's a lot of cells lined up all in a row there. it's not like something dramatic could happen without having some sense of hearing something unless the guards completely dropped the ball here. the burden of pro the bureau of prisons has a long red. >> ghislain maxwell, can you tell me more about her role in his life. and going back to these victims, criminal case closed, civil case opened. so how could they see some sort of justice here? >> so there's a lot to unpack there. in the epstein orbit. so ghislain maxwell, unlike jeffrey epstein, was very educated. when she came to this country after the death of her father, which was a disgraced tycoon who died soon after it was exposed he had robbed pension funds. >> okay. >> s

. >> when alex marquardt and evan perez, they asked ratcliffe's office about this and ratcliffe's office up this statement. department of justice records will confirm that as both chief of anti-terrorism and national security for the eastern district of texas from '04 to '08, john ratcliffe opened, supervised numerous terrorism-related cases. cnn's initial search of court records does not find any terrorism cases that he was listed as prosecuting. what do you make of their statement there after the research you've done? >> yeah. so i can decode that as a former u.s. attorney. first of all, it doesn't speak at all to the specific lies, i think would be the right word, about the cases he's touting on his website. but he was in this role in the office for a couple years where anything having anything to do with terrorism would officially kind of come by his desk and maybe get the t on it. of course in east texas, it's not a hotbed of terrorism. whatever there is seems not at all to have been what we think of for a director of national intelligence, but kind of, you know, little incidents in

. >> evan perez, thank you very much.you know, really it's a lot of the states making these decisions but if it was an explosive device we would have a different conversation in this country. evan, thank you very much. chris, to you in texas. >> all right, brooke, thank you very much. i want to bring in an expert for us on the fbi but i want to cue this up for you. the idea of making this death penalty eligible sounds strong, okay. however, that assumes it would be a deterrent in these situations. what happens with most mass shooters? it's like suicide by cop, right? you have to think about that. what do we know about hate crimes? they are on the way up especially in this administration, 2017, the numbers right here, you had 13, 2018, had you 17, now in 2019 just this one event at walmart blows that record away. right wing extremism, white nationalists have been number one and number two. the difference between them and extreme islamism, they're killing us from inside. first, is my confusion justified? i get the death pen

ee ran perez is outfront following the story. evanst you know about what's going on in philadelphia? >> well, erin, the police are are trying to communicate with the shooter or shooters. at this point the still are not exactly sure how many people are in there. one of the latest things we know from the scene, kyw reporter just spoke to four women taken out of the second floor. they lived on the second floor of the building. this is where two officers have barricading themselves. and these women were being evacuated outside of the very building that this shooter has been firing at police officers. this is now a scene, erin, that has been a standoff for two hours. and at this point the police say they are trying to communicate with the shooter. now, at some point the s.w.a.t. team has to go in there. and they're trying to formulate a plan. but one of the things that makes it more complicated is the fact that you have these two officers who appear to bed on the second floort floor of the building. it appears the shooter or shooters isn't

let's check back in with evan perez. there was some talk that atf, fbi, might be on the scene or coming there. >> that's right, anderson. this is a typical situation, obviously. you have a very active situation with active shooter, essentially who is firing at police officers. you have officers barricaded, so basically it's an all hands on deck situation. you can see from some of the early scenes we're showing you there, you had undercover officers showing up at the scene and at this point as jason pointed out, because it's been silent, you know, it kind of changes what this strategy might be if you're the s.w.a.t. officers who are going to go in there. one of the things i heard from sources was the concern this is a suspect or suspects, again, because we don't know how many, who wanted to die essentially, suicide by cop and take as many officers as possible. and so that's one of the things that they were trying to guard against. of course you have the complication of a couple of officers who remain in that building and

i want to bring in now joey jackson and evan perez. gentlemen, good evening. k you so much for joining. you know, evan, we're hearing that the jail where epstein was being held had some real problems. what do you know? what can you tell us? >> that's right, don. you know, at this point the attorney general is doing an investigation, but a few things have already become known. it appears that there have been systemic problems at the metropolitan correctional center in manhattan. one of the guards who was working that night, the night that epstein apparently killed himself, wasn't even a regular guard. this person was part of this program that the bureau of prisons uses to train people who are brought in as cooks and teachers at prisons and who get trained to work at posts that are normally manned by correctional officers. so that's at least one of the officers. we know that according to the union that represents the employees at the mcc that it's not uncommon for employees to bork 17 and 18-hour days. one of the guards was doing just that, multiple days of overt

according to a source briefed on the matter who spoke with my colleague evan perez for a number of hourseading up to his death, guards did not check on his cell. it is protocol for guards to check on inmates every half hour. and justice officials have also uncovered broader problems here at the facility. it is long been considered among the best in the entire bureau of prison system. but these issues are certainly to be part of the investigation into what happened to epstein. tonight growing questions and investigation announced after accused sex trafficker jeffrey epstein died from apparent suicide over the weekend and in manhattan metropolitan correction center. >> i was appalled and indeed the whole department was and frankly angry to learn of the mcc's failure to adequately secure this prisoner. >> reporter: william barr blasting the jail for what he called irregularities that are concerning. and the department of justice inspector general said he would get to the bottom of what happened. the financier was found unresponsive in his cell on saturday morning and later pronounced dead a

evan perez, this lawsuit describes a web of people who were allegedly involved in recruiting young girlsight, jake. jennifer araoz in her lawsuit said that epstein raped her in 2014, 2015. this is back several years ago. and that he had the help of not only ghislaine maxwell who worked for epstein and was allegedly his madam but other people not identified in the lawsuit as -- they just named as recruiter, secretary and maid. and essentially identified as jane does. now according to the lawsuit, these are people key to having epstein recruit women or young girls rather, including jennifer araoz when it was well-known he was trying to do these things. so the lawsuit here is against epstein estate as well as against the other people who allegedly were his helpers in carrying out this sex trafficking ring. >> and aside from the lawsuit, the justice department is also -- they say they're going to go after epstein's allege co-conspirators, where do those cases stand? >> that is the big focus now of the justice department. it is no doubt, jake, that the fact that epstein is dead is a big blow

with me today to share their reporting and their insights, julie pace, evan perez, shawna thomas and karen demersion. i want to come back to the president and his behavior, i'll leave it for now. let's listen first to the attorney general. he says we'll get to the bottom of this and someone is going pay. >> we will get to the bottom of what happened, and there will be accountability. but let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with epstein. any co-conspirators should not rest easy. the victims deserve justice and they will get it. >> what do we know about that, in the sense that epstein's victims very much wanted this trial. >> yes. >> for closure. and to have him held accountable for his heinous reprehensible crimes. that doesn't happen. he obviously can't cooperate now and name names, so what happens? >> right, exactly. so he is obviously -- was a very valuable witness in this case. you know, it is the nightmarish scenario for prosecutors because at the very least they were hoping that perhaps over time working with his lawyers they could

evan perez, violent ideologies, what does this development tell you?wolf, these are extremist ideologies that he has apparently was consuming. we heard from the investigators early in the case they found that he seemed to be consumed and obsessed with violence. i think the girlfriend has given an interview in which she said he showed her videos of mass shootings on the first date which is the oddest thing i've ever heard but this tells us, wolf, that what the fbi and the dayton police found in their searches gives them reason to believe that there is something deeper here that they want to make sure that they could get -- they could try to figure out whether there is some parts of the internet that he's been consuming and whether this is driving not only this shooting but others as well. >> others as well. the gilroy california, the fbi now said they are investigating that as domestic terrorism because they found a list of organizations, religious organizations, political organizations, federal buildings, courthouses that this individual who did this s