speaking right now will be sheriff jerry demings from the orange county sheriff's office and followed by the florida da fish & wildlife conservation commission. sheriff demings? >> okay. we're hear this afternoon to give you an update on where we are with this recovery effort. we'll share with you that we just met with the family, spent some time with them and delivered this update. at about 1:45 today, members of the orange county sheriff's office dive team located what is believed to be the remains of the deceased, a 2-year-old and i'll identify him in just a few moments. at about 3:30 today, we recovered the remains of the 2-year-old from the water and that body has now been turned over to the orange county medical office for an autopsy. the family, i'm going to go ahead and identify the parents are matt and melissa graves from elkhorn, nebraska. their 2-year-old is lane graves. i will share with you that the child was found, his body was completely in tact and so at this time we will go through the formality of making a formal identification. but there's no reason for us to believ

i'm going to turn it over to or county sheriff jerry demings at this time. >> thank you keith. good morning. you now heard about the timeline of events during the early morning hours of june 12. as you heard, this has been a collaborative effort on the very beginning. i must say that the response of the orlando police department and those initial response of law-enforcement officers has been nothing less then short of being extraordinary. one of the reasons why the response was extraordinary is really because of the overall preparedness to deal with an incident like this. after this crisis, our federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have been preparing for this event and in fact, for years now we have prepared to respond to a terror event. in recent months, our agencies have been involved in training our personnel to be able torapidly respond to an active shooter incident . in terms of our overall preparedness, i want to talk a little bit about our partnership with the department of homeland security. in september 2014, in fact on september 9 and september 10, we par

we'll answer questions at the end. >> i'm sheriff jerry demings.oin our entire community in offering our sympathy to these families who have lost loved ones. this has certainly been a tragic day for all of us, in that this is a day of worship, and in most places of america, we call upon members of the clergy to pray for family members and this community for healing. in the last several hours, the men and women here in law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved. you all have seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device team, bomb units working from the orange county sheriffs office with units from the orlando fire department to make certain that we do not have any secondary type device or what have you that were in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time to ensure the safety of everyone. so that's why we have not been able to remove all of the victims, if you will, from the crisis site at this point. that process is continuing. we likely have

sheriff jerry demings of orange county described what happened. the young child lane graves, 2 years old, had been wading fairly close to his parents who were in the pool area of the hotel. very close by. the parents are matt and melissa graves. the child was dragged under by the alligator and according to the authorities drowned. the body of the child was found inta intact. when the sheriff delivered the news to the parents he took with himming a catholic priest. they were relieved to find that the body of the child had been found intact. then we heard from nick wiley with the fish wildlife conservation commission. he said they will continue to look for alligators to make sure that they got the alligator which took the child. they are reasonably shoe they did indeed get the right alligator but they will continue to search. it's a dreadful situation and we have just had it described in full by the authorities in orlando. judge, thoughts sir? >> i think the case against disney to the extent you want to discuss this dollars and cents aspect is a str

i'm going to turn it over to orange county sheriff jerry demings at this time. >> thank you, chief. good morning. you now heard about the time line of events during the early morning hours of june the 12th. as you've heard, this has been a collaborative effort from the very beginning. i must say that the response of the orlando police department and those initial responding law enforcement officers has been nothing less than short of being extraordinary. one of the reasons why the response was extraordinary is really because of the overall preparedness to deal with an incident like this. prior to this crisis, our federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies have been preparing for this event. in fact, for years now we have prepared to respond to a terror event. in recent months our agencies have been involved in training our personnel to be able to rapidly respond to an active shooter incident. in terms of our overall preparedness, i want to talk a little bit about our partnership with the department of homeland security. in september of 2014, in fact, on september the 9th and

i'm going to turn it over to orange county sheriff jerry demings at this time. >> thank you, chief. good morning. you've now heard about the timeline of events during the early morning hours of june the 12th. as you've heard, this has been a collaborative effort from the very beginning. i must say that the response of the orlando police department and those initial responding law enforcement officers has been nothing less than short of being extraordinary. one of the reasons why the response was extraordinary is really because of the overall preparedness to deal with an incident like this. prior to this crisis, our federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have been preparing for this event. in fact for years now we have prepared to respond to a terror event. in recent months, our agencies have been involved in training our personnel to be able to rapidly respond to an active shooter incident. in terms of our overall preparedness, i want to talk a little bit about our partnership with the department of homeland security. in september of 2014, in fact on september the 9th and

. >> i'm sheriff jerry demings.oin our entire community in offering our sympathies to these families who have lost loved ones. this has certainly been a tragic day for all of us. in that this is a day of worship and most places in clergy to pray for those families and this community and this nation for healing. in the last several hours, the men and women here in law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved. you've seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device people, bomb units working from the orange county sheriff's office with units from the orlando fire department to make certain that we did not have any secondary type devices off what have you in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time tone sure t to ensure the safety of everyone. so that's why we have not been able to remove all of the victims, if you will, from the crisis site at this that process is continuing. we likely have another hour to two of oper

sheriff jerry demings: >> we recovered the remains of the two-year-old from the water, and that body has now been turned over to the orange county medical examiner's office. >> reporter: matt and mel and their two kids, vacationers from elkhorn, nebraska, walked along the lagoon's edge last night. lane, their two-year-old son, waded into water one-foot deep around 9:00 p.m. an alligator then pounced. his father tried but failed to wrestle his son back to safety, and the gator and the boy disappeared into the water. in their search, divers, helped by sewnor, found and killed five alligators. mark mchugh, an alligator expert said summer is their breeding and nesting season. >> they can pop up almost anywhere, and i'm not real familiar with the situation out there but i think there are a lot of canals and a lot of spondz. a lot of lakes that interconnect all the way through the disney property, so it wouldn't be unusual at all for alligators to be moving from one body to the next. >> reporter: gate roars part of the landscape at walt disney world. we found some signs inside the park war

. >> aim sheriff jerry deming, and i join our entire community in offering our sympathy to these families who have lost loved ones. this has been a tragic day for all of us. and in that this is a day of worship in most places in america, we do call upon the members of the clergy to pray for those families, and this community and nation for healing. the last several hours the men and women in law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved. you all have seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device team the bomb team have been working with the orange county sheriffs office and units from the orlando fire department to make sure that we did not have any secondary type devices or what have you, that were in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time to ensure the safety of everyone and so that is why we have not been able to remove all of the victims, if you will, from the crisis site at this point. that process is continuing. we likely have another hour to two of operational necessity to ensu

. >> aim sheriff jerry deming, and i join our entire community in offering our sympathy to these families who have lost loved ones. this has been a tragic day for all of us. and in that this is a day of worship in most places in america, we do call upon the members of the clergy to pray for those families, and this community and nation for healing. the last and women in law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved. you all have seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device team the bomb team have been working with the orange county sheriffs office and units from the orlando fire department to make sure that we did not have any secondary type devices or what have you, that were in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time to ensure the safety of everyone and so that is why we have not been able to remove all of the victims, if you will, from the crisis site at this point. that process is continuing. we likely have another hour to two of operational necessity to ensure the safety before w

>>sheriff jerry demings/orange county, fl there's, like, no question in my mind that the child was drownedigator." >> pam:officials say the animal may but they'll keep searching until they're certain they've got the right one. >>we're going to try to continue searching and we're going to make certain that we have the alligator that was involved and that we remove it, >> pam:there were signs warning "no swimming" posted around the area. and this lagoon is no stranger to gators. disney has an open permit to pull alligators from the water when they're spotted. >> pam:as the state of florida and disney work to see if there changes. condolences have poured in. from the c-e-o of disney.to the governor of their homestate of nebraska. and back home. they were protective, they tragedy. it was a tragic accident, one that could anybody out there. >> pam:there's well over a million alligators in the state of florida but attacks are extremely rare. disney has never had an attack like this. and in there's only been one other alligator attack in the state of florida this year. >> pam:disney ceo bob iger

and orange county sheriff jerry demings joins us. good evening, sheriff. >> good evening. >> you and i were just standing together talking about the massacre down there in orlando. who would have dreamed that we have now gotten to this point where you have to deal with this child. i just came -- you had to notify the parents; is that correct? >> i did, and that was a bit of sad news that we had to deliver to the parents. but, at the same time, i believe some of what we said to them was a relief. one, because they knew that we had located their child and that was our commitment to them that we would continue to search for this child until we located him. >> i can't imagine anything harder for the family or you, sir, having to do that. no one wants to do that. in terms of this investigation, the child was dragged by an alligator; is that correct? >> the child was 2 years old and was just kind of wading within 6 to 12 inches of water. the alligator came up and attacked and took him out in to the water and likely drowned the child at tha

. >> reporter: orange county sheriff jerry demings said he spoke with him right after the massacre. >i can tell you, i saw utter anxiety in his face at that time. he said, sheriff, there are multiple bodies in there. i just saw something that i've never seen before. >> reporter: it was a uniformed officer working security at the pulse nightclub who first confronted the shooter. omar mateen then took hostages and barricaded himself inside a restroom. three hours later, a s.w.a.t. team stormed the building killing mateen. >> it's been the most dark day in the history of this city. >> reporter: val demings is ord orlando's former police chief. >> they are trained to run to what most people run away from. >> reporter: the stories of h r harroism are not limited to the police. >> reporter: a lot of people would not have stopped to help anyone else. they would have been too scared to continue but you stayed and yet you helped other people survive this. how did you do that? >> i just -- i'm a medical assistant. i studied in college for a year and worked in the field. i feel like my calling w

we just spoke, sat down with sheriff jerry demings and he talked more about this inve gages and did say that the suspect barricaded himself inside that restroom while during that period of time between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. where these hostages were taken and when authorities went inside and made that decision at 5:00 a.m. and at the sideed decided storm the area to distract the gunman and took him out. he also talked about that we've been hearing about hero police officers and earlier in the afternoon, we heard there was at least 1 1 police officers involved but involved three of his sheriff's deputies. 14 law enforcement personnel fired at this suspect and while names have not been released, the sheriff told me several of them were very experienced. one of them a 14-year veteran of opd he hired when he worked inside the police department and talked to me about what this is doing to those sheriff deputies as well as those police officers. take a listen to what he had to say about that 14-year veteran of the force. >> i can tell you that i saw utter anxiety in his face at that time. h

we'll answer questions at the end. >> i'm sheriff jerry demings and i join our entire community in offering our sympathy to these families who have lost loved ones. this has certainly been a tragic day for all of us, and in that this is a day of worship and most places in america we do call upon the members of the clergy to pray for those families and for this community and this nation for healing. in the last several hours, the men and women here in law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved. you all have seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device team, our bomb units have been working from the orange county sheriff's office with units from the orlando fire department to make certain that we did not have any secondary type devices or what have you that were in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time to ensure the safety of everyone and so that's why we have not been able to remove all of the victims, if you will, from the crisis site at this point. that process is continuing. we l

. >> i'm sheriff jerry demings, and i join our entire community in offering our sympathy to these families who have lost loved ones. this has certainly been a tragic day for all of us. in that this is a day of worship in most places in america, we do call upon the members of the clergy to pray for those families and for this community and this nation for healing. in the last several hours, the men and women here and law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved up. all have seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device team, bomb units have been working from the orange county sheriff's office with units from the orlando fire department to make certain we did not have any secondary type devices or what have you, that were in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time to ensure the safety of everyone. so, that's why we have not been able to remove all of the victims, if you will, from the crisis site at this point. that process is continuing. we likely have another hour to two of operation o

. >> i'm sheriff jerry demings and i join our entire community in offering our sympathy to these families who have lost loved ones. this has certainly been a tragic day for all of it in that this is a day of worship and most places in america we do call upon the members of the clergy to pray for those families and this community and this nation for a healing and the last several hours the men and women here in law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved. y'all have seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device team, bomb units have been working from the orange county sheriff's office with unit from the orlando fire department to make sure we did not have any secondary type devices that were in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time to ensure the safety of everyone and so that's why we have not been able to remove all of the victims if you will from the psoriasis site at this point. that process is continuing. we likely have another hour or two of operation or necessity to ensure the

cheryl: we've been listening to press conference, that was jerry demings giving a press conference. confirmation coming sadly the body of two-year-old lane graves. his body was found located by a dive team about 1:45 p.m. this afternoon, and the remains recovered about 3:30. his body was intact. parents had been informed. we got the names of the parents who sadly lost their child last night, melissa and matt graves. residents of elk horn, nebraska. an official from florida wildlife commission saying they are examining every single gator they've caught. they caught five to see if they found the gator that attacked that child last night. also saying they're working closely with officials at disney world to make sure there is no longer a threat from gators in the area. but again, the sad news coming and confirming what many believed we already know, that child snatched last night is deceased, and an autopsy is going to be performed, connell, sad news out of florida. connell: doesn't get much worse than that. absolutely not. >>> let's move on here as we talk about the election alert of

. >> speaking right now will be sheriff jerry demings from the orange county sheriff's office, followed by executive director nick wiley from the florida fish and wildlife conservation commission. sheriff demings? >> we're here this afternoon to give you an update on where we are with this recovery effort. we'll share with you that we just met with the family, spent some time with them, and delivered this update. at about 1:45 today, members of the orange county sheriff's office dive team located what is believed to be the remains of the deceased, a 2-year-old, and i'll identify him in just a few moments. at about 3:30 today, we recovered the remains of the 2-year-old from the water, and that body has now been turned over to the orange county medical examiner's office for an autopsy. the family, i'm gonna go ahead and identify, the parents are matt and melissa graves from elk horn, nebraska. the 2-year-old is lane graves. i will share with you that the child was found, his body was completely intact. and so at this time we will go through the formality of making a formal identification.

. >> aim sheriff jerry deming, and i join our entire community in offering our sympathy to these families who have lost loved ones. this has been a tragic day for all of us. and in that this is a day of worship in most places in america, we do call upon the members of the clergy to pray for those families, and this community and nation for healing. the last several hours the men and women in law enforcement have been working diligently to ensure the overall safety of everyone involved. you all have seen most recently where there were members of our hazardous device team the bomb team have been working with the orange county sheriffs office and units from the orlando fire department to make sure that we did not have any secondary type devices or what have you, that were in the crisis site itself. that process has taken an extended period of time to ensure the safety of everyone and so that is why we have not been able to remove all of the victims, if you will, from the crisis site at this point. that process is continuing. we likely have another hour to two of operational necessity to ensu

i am also honored to be joined by orlando chief of police and orange county sheriff jerry demings. i thank them for being here with me today. i am here to meet with the investigators and stay and local partners on the ground and to support the people of this great city and all of those who have been affected by this devastating tragedy. but i am also here to reaffirm this administration's unshakable commitment to the safety of our citizens, to the security of our nation and the strength of our values. early today i met with u.s. attorney lee bentley and his staff, who are helping to coordinate the justice department's participation in this ongoing investigation, which includes my colleagues at the fbi, atf, the national security division, and the u.s. attorney offices here in florida. i have also visited with some of the family members. those who have been lost and wounded in this attack. this afternoon i will meet with state and local law enforcement and first responders and they could not be more proud of all the members of the orlando community that i have met with and who are g

here is how sheriff jerry demings delivered the news. >> i delivered the news with a priest, a catholicrse the family was distraught but also somewhat relieved that we were able to find their son, with his body intact, one, and two, that he was located so they can come to grips with what has happened. >> reporter: small consolation in what is otherwise a horrific, horrific story. two other notes from the press briefing from officials, first, they say they're going to keep working to find the alligator that attacked the toddler. they pulled five of them from the lagoon, still examining them to see if there's any evidence that links them to the attack. they won't stop until they find that alligator. the other interesting thing, they say they're going to continue working with disney to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. quote, we would not discount anything as a possible measure to prevent something so rare like this to happen again in what is supposed to be the happiest place on earth, wolf. >> hearts go out to the graves family, loss of their little boy, lane. thanks ver

the mayor, buddy dyer, chief john mina from the orange -- orlando police department, and sheriff jerry demingsl there be as well. again, to temper expectations, all of the questions will not be answered, but for those loved ones standing outside for hours now, up to five hours, this will start to give them some clarity about what happened there and where they can find their loved ones. >> it makes you wonder, too. for some reason, i go back to the colorado theater shooting. when they're saying mass casualties, we can only assume obviously that there are still people who are deceased inside that night club. real quickly, we have about 30 seconds, cedric, how long before people would get word and they might be able to clear that scene and get these people back to their families? >> that's a speculation i cannot make, because the sensitivity of this crime scene and the possibility of there being some real casualties there. i think we're going to have to wait and see here in a few minutes. we'll have a much better idea to draw some conclusions. >> i appreciate that. we've talked about the fog of b

. >> reporter: orange county sheriff jerry demings said he spoke with one of the officers, a 14 yearcre. >> and i can tell you i saw ultra anxiety in his face at that time. he said, sheriff, there are multiple bodies in there. i saw something that i've never seen before. >> reporter: it was a uniformed officer working security at the pulse nightclub who first confronted the shooter. omar mateen then took and barricaded himself inside a restroom. three hours later, a s.w.a.t. team stormed the building killing mateen. >> it's been one of the worst days. >> reporter: val demings is the former police chief. >> they're trained to run to things that most people are running away from. >> reporter: carlos rosario is among those who rushed to help the wounded. a lot of people would have just run from that situation. they wouldn't have stopped to help anyone else. they would have been too scared to continue. yet, you stayed, you helped other people survive this. how did you do that? >> i just -- i'm a medical assistant. i studied in college for a year and i also worked in the field. i feel lik

. >> reporter: orange county sheriff jerry deming said he spoke to one of the officers, a 14-year veteran can tell you i saw utter anxiety in his face at that time. he said, sheriff, there's multiple bodies in there. i just saw something i never seen before. >> reporter: it was a uniformed officer, working security at the pulse nightclub, that first confronted the shooter. omar mateen took hostages and barricaded himself inside a restroom. later, a s.w.a.t. team swarmed the building, killing ma teenl. >> it's been the most dark day in the history of this city. >> reporter: the former police chief said the carnage would have been worse, if not for the officers' quick response. but the stories of heroism are not limited to law enforcement. >> people are dropping like flies. >> reporter: carlos was among those who rushed to help the wounded. >> a lot of people would have run from that situation. they wouldn't have stopped to help anyone else. they would have been too scared to continue. but you stayed and you helped other people survive this. how did you do that? >> i just -- i'm a medical a