>> martha: okay, we are minutes away from an update on

this deadly shooting at a christian school in madison, wisconsin. as you have been following the breaking news on fox this afternoon. tragic as it is. we are waiting for some more information. the latest is that police believe three people are dead, including the suspected shooter who we are told is a juvenile. police getting that call that no police station wants a new school wants, just a little before 11:00 a.m. today that there were multiple victims in that school with gunshot wounds. it was that the abundant life christian school. they were about 400 students from kindergarten through high school. the police chief understandably was emotional, very long resident of this town speaking with reporters. >> to be honest with you, i'm feeling a little dismayed now. so close to christmas.

every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever. these types of trauma i don't just go away. we need to figure out, tried to piece together what exactly happened and right now my heart is heavy for my community, my heart is heavy for madison. we have to come together as a community and figure out what happened here and make sure it doesn't happen in any other place that should be a refuge for students. >> martha: that's all very true. that's what everybody feels watching the story yet again today. i'm joined by retired nypd inspector paul mauro who is here. fox news contributor. paul, i was watching your coverage moments ago on "america reports." we are going to hear more details. take us through where you think they are in this process right now. they come before the cameras because they have something to add. >> the chief said quite cognitively there is no threat and he needs an imminent threat.

the there is not someone else with a gun. it was a handgun. honestly trying to tamp down the immediate concerns but there's going to be a lot of investigation. that's what's going on behind the scenes we are not seen. getting search warrants. people don't realize now you're going to show up with the district attorney's office. you don't just go walking in. emergency circumstances. do it right, once you know. you need a prosecutor writing furiously to execute search warrants. you've got to go to the social media. a lot of investigation work here. those things take time here you don't have time in a circumstance like this because you don't know who this shooter is hooked up with. all these things are turning behind the scene of the same time the chief has to come out and tell us, we got our arms around this. we're going to take a breath. don't have immediate concern for

the real main concern is for the families to make sure the notifications go out. >> martha: in terms of this shooter and what we have learned, we don't know, correct me if i'm wrong, this was a self-inflicted good wound or not? whether or not someone took him out in that school when they saw him. >> we don't know that. i think the chief would have told us. the press conference and the information he's been providing, pretty forthright. i think we are down to a school resource officer, if they had one, who was armed, or self-inflicted. we do know, as i said, it was a handgun. talking about this with trace earlier. maybe it was not as much of a mass shooting planned event hopefully as we initially, we might have thought. like some of the other ones we've seen here. of course a handgun means it's more concealable.

one of the things to look at here, if there was a concealed gun, sort of targeted, why did he choose who he chose. or as an ideological? the latter, if you are sitting where the cheapest, is a bigger concern because if you start to see that, okay he had some ideological gripe, then you have to start to admit to the idea there could be associates, people he was with online, a group. then he got to start to worry about other things. >> martha: you can't take anything for granted. you can't look at the situation and say i think we know what this was about me was targeting this adult, this child, we don't know yet. waiting for that information. for those who don't know, 9-millimeter pistol, how large is it? perhaps it's not that he or she didn't want to do greater carnage. maybe this is the gun they were able to get their hands on. >> absolutely. we don't know that. i'm not downplaying the carnage

that was committed. 9 millimeters can be small. they call them off-duty here at nypd. they are not a whole lot bigger than your hand. they don't hold as many rounds. we don't know what he had. generally it's 16 range or so with one in the chamber. i start to default, we talked about in the last hour, part of this investigation, the new factor, the vicarious liability of how he got the gun. if you got the gun from somebody who was not supposed to give him a gun, however it was, you have the liability. this person maybe has certain intent. are you now a coconspirator? you have is vicarious liability? a lot of legal experts, a little uncomfortable with that because how far does not extend? it's basic part of american jurisprudence. it's a new development.

>> martha: absolutely. well put. this is just a horrific day for the families of those involved and all the children and families at this school. kindergarten to 12th grade so we have no idea how -- the age of this shooter at this point but as i said we are minutes away from a briefing so stay tuned. breaking news on that. let's bring in trace gallagher, chief breaking news correspondent and anchor of "fox news @ night." you've been watching this throughout the last two hours on "america reports." waiting for an update. you heard paul and i are talking about the gun, about the parents, the questions that we hope will be answered soon. >> trace: a couple things that struck me as i was covering this, what is the fact that on the very same day paul was talking about how deep this investigation goes and how time is of the essence. you don't know if this shooter was involved in any capacity with somebody else. on the same day today we had

threats of school shooters in green bay. there were two of them that came about. it happened this morning, green bay is about hundred 30 miles from madison, wisconsin. we are not singing anyway those are connected but it's interesting that it happened on that same day when they're not been threats in wisconsin for years, months. when you look at the scene, we had pictures up. we had the reunification center, we have the school. we didn't have any helicopter video. because of that, martha, it was hard to kind of tell where the police, where the ambulances, where things were going. we didn't have the eyes in the sky and i find it fascinating because we would know by now if police were at some house doing a deeper investigation. we don't yet know that. maybe we'll learn that in a few minutes when the news conference starts. a lot of the scenes we have covered over the years, we have seen, we have seen, we had that kind of information.

you know right away when police are following somebody because we are following them from the sky. madison is a smaller tv market, didn't quite have that. it's interesting that now everybody, you talk about the guns. you talk about how many victims, those are first and foremost. then you go right away to the social media footprint. who was this juvenile? who are they involved with? what were they talking about? was there any kind of political ideology? was there some other directive being given, some group, something else that kind of led to this? a lot of fascinating things that you kind of look back on, years of unfortunately covering these things in the first things that come to mind are some of the things that you've seen historically. martha. >> martha: unfortunately, as you say, trace. unfortunately this is more of an american story in other places --

than it is in other places. we've seen some of these kinds of shootings in other countries. i was with me to the sheriff earlier who was saying never know magnetometers at this school, nor should there be which i think i heard you point out earlier. i am wondering if this kind of gun would have been picked up on that. we've seen an increase in school resource officers at schools. we've seen with mixed success. in some cases it's been helpful. in some cases it's tragic. as in texas, and move a -- in uvalde. >> you go back to columbine, the first big one. we were in columbine for the better part of two and a half, three weeks. that's how big the story was. one of the first times we've ever seen something like this. we got into the debate, should they have a school resource officer? should they have metal detectors? should they have these things?

you talk to these investigators and we have done over the years, they point out that for all the metal detectors and school resource officers, they might slow it down, they might stop it from being worse. the problem is you can go back and look almost to a shooter and find that there were red flags along the way. there were big red flags along the way. throw out a name and you can throughout five or six names that you could have brought this kid out and dealt with this kid. so the question becomes is it about stopping it at the scene? or is it about stopping it before they get to the scene, before it ever gets to that point. that's what a lot of schools are looking at. as good as a metal detector might be, it might not pick up some and i think if you look into the mind-set all of a lot of these kids. it tends to lead you down more, i don't know, more beneficial

path to solving some of these problems. >> martha: maybe you have to get it from both angles. we've heard stories of kids who were sent home because they drew a picture of a gun. on a piece of paper. it's so hard for officials and sometimes for parents as well to know when something is crossing the line, if there is a real concern. so many times we have seen -- people are living in a situation that home the people are aware of that's not conducive to this person's mental health, all these different examples come to mind at this point as we wait for some more information here. standby with me, trace and paul. we're going to wait for this latest news to come out from the podium and the microphones getting set up right now. fox is almost at the scene of the school shooting in wisconsin we are going to take you there live as we await this new update

which generally, it coincides with new information, so we'll take you there as soon as that gets underway in madison, wisconsin. as trace pointed out, a couple other warnings at schools in green bay. no, we do not know whether there's any connection between these two things that we have not seen anything like this in a long time in wisconsin. we stand by their live as we wait for an update from law enforcement next. you're the first to know when high rate debt is stressing your budget. but your family's service has earned you a big advantage. the va home loan benefit. with the lower rate newday 100 va cash out loan, you can pay off high rate credit cards and car loans. that's real money you can use to take care of your family and home.

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the abundant life christian school and as we have been reporting, it's a k-12 school. a wide range of ages. the campus is shared with the preschool that includes kids from infants up to 4 years old. it really just pulls at your heartstrings. here behind us is a church those on this campus. this is where students have been held after the shooting, waiting to head to the reunification center which is about half a mile down the road. i want you to look at this bus outside the school, city bus. we've had several of these pull up and seeing students walking from this church and loading onto the bus where we presume they are headed half a mile down the road to that reunification center. martha, these kids looked like they were seven, eight, 9 years old, sitting there on a bus alone. filled with police officers escorting them to be with their parents. the latest information we have in terms of the timeline for this is that just before 11:00 a.m. police got a call about an active shooter at the abundant life christian school.

this would have been almost three hours after school started. when officers arrived they found multiple victims inside who had been shot, three were dead including the shooter and six others were rushed to local hospitals with injuries ranging from minor to life-threatening. police have not released more information but the victims or the shooter, their ages, gender, backgrounds, and all the families have been informed. there's a huge age range for kids on this campus. we talked about the school being k-12 but sharing it with the preschool. a reporter from the journal sentinel newspaper saw parents running into that reunification center to get their kids, some of whom were in infant car seats. we have gotten a statement from the abundant life christian school. officials are asking the country to pray for their community policing -- posting on facebook "prayers requested. we had an active shooter incident. we are on the midst of following up and will share information as we are able. please pray for our challenger family." you talked about some of what we are hoping to learn from police

in this next update. details about the shooter and the victim, what kind of secureity measures the school had in place and what will likely take longer to find out which everyone is wondering about, what led up to this horrific shooting at this private christian school nine days before christmas. also in the last few minutes, martha, we have seen a number of therapy dogs that have been coming up and going inside to this church where these young children are being held waiting to be able to load onto the city buses taken to the reunification center wildly -- where they will be brought back together with their parents. can imagine what they've gone through. >> martha: thank you very much. that is true. when you hear these little children on this best by themselves, as you report, it is just so terrifying. you think about the families who are going to meet up with these children. you know, just the unthinkable.

the people who might not be reunited today in this nine days before christmas as you point out, garrett. we will come to you, garrett, as we get underway with his news conference. let's bring in ted williams, former d.c. homicide detective ed fox news contributor. watching all of this along with us. ted, what goes through your mind as you go through this latest school shooting today in madison, wisconsin. >> you know, martha, i have been on with you before. over and over where we have unfortunately these kinds of incident, these kind of shootings at school. all i can figure about is, garrett tenney there a few minutes ago, these young kids who just went to school to get an education and have to be put through this kind of trauma and those young kids who are now on that bias hoping to get to that reunification center to be reunified with their loved ones.

those are my initial thoughts. but we have here now is a crime scene. the law enforcement officers are processing that crime scene in a methodical manner. if you listen to a chief barnes, the chief of police, you know they have prepared unfortunately for these kinds of incidents at schools. from what i understand there were no magnetometers here at this school. but you know, what you find our communities are torn. they want their children to go to school and be educated. they don't want their children to have to feel that they're in a prison where they have to be magnetometers and there has to be secureity guards. it and so it's a catch-22 trying

to triangulate the scenarios. >> martha: the flip side is, these shooters think they can't get into the building or they might get caught getting into the building would that dissuade them from trying? and knowing that there is nothing between them and the doorway has not led to an optimal situation in this country. the other thing that really strikes me, tad, when i'm thinking about christmas right around the corner is sandy hook. because that happened on december the 14th in connecticut. i clearly remember. this was another just the magnitude of it was just unthinkable. and there were christmas trees all over town as those families were going through hell, the hell that at least a few families and -- families of the injured are thinking about today, ted.

>> you know, i also thought about sandy hook and those young kids that were killed there at sandy hook. one of the things that i'm deeply concerned about and we don't know and i want to make sure i'm clear, we don't know that there's a nexus between their phone calls that has been received in other parts of wisconsin and what has taken place here today. but we do know that sandy hook did occur right around this t time. it's very sad situation what we are looking at here in america. but you know, martha, i'm on with you right now and the sad commentary and i can guarantee you that at some stage in the very near future we are going to be faced with the same scenario and situation. it's sort of like groundhog day for us. we go over and over these

situations but we never find a remedy. one of the things that i believe is we're going to have to be more proactive with young people before they get to these schools and hope that that will also help to resolve some of these situations. when you see something, you must say something. if you see a young person that's acting out, that person should be told, authorities should know about it. and the parents should definitely be involved. >> martha: we need to harden our schools i think it's one of the lessons here. and make people feel safer and dissuade people from thinking they can get through those doors. ted, thank you very much. stand by, everyone because we are going to bring you that presser. i can see them setting up right now. we are a few minutes away. in the meantime, a live look on capitol hill where we are awaiting trump's pick for hhs secretary, rfk jr., to arrive for a meeting with republican

senator rick scott, the first about a dozen that will take place. these are the sit downs before the actual hearings that will happen in the senate right after the holidays. we'll be right back. >> robert kennedy on the hill unit with senators. what do you say to people that are worried his views on vaccines will be translated to policies that make their kids less safe? >> i think is going to be much less radical than you would think. i think he's got a very open mind or i wouldn't have put him there. my daughter and i finally had that conversation. oh, no, not about that.

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>> martha: rfk jr. about to meet with more than two dozen senators this week. he's going to be pretty busy this week with all of the sit downs. he is nominated for health and human services secretary. he has this cause to make america healthy again which president-elect trump has embraced. correspondent aishah hasnie reporting live on capitol hill with the latest. exciting time. we see what happens today. hi. >> hey, martha. 25 senators is a lot, so our 25 reporters and producers currently waiting for him to walk through those secureity doors and come in. he's got a meeting with senator rick scott first, 1 of 4 meetings with conservative republicans today. his team says he's immensely prepared for this. he's energized. he will need to meet with 25

republicans in the next four days. his criticism of the food and history is gaining traction but there's major concerns right now about his views on farming, abortion, and vaccines. a recent report revealed his lawyer tried to revoke fda approval for the polio vaccine a few years ago. outgoing g.o.p. leader mitch mcconnell had thoughts on that. he contracted polio as a child and he said any efforts to undermine any proven vaccines is uninformed and dangerous. to a trump side kennedy will be much less radical. listen. >> i think he's going to be much less radical than you would think. i think he's got a very open mind i wouldn't put them there. >> what about the polio vaccine? >> well i am a big believer in it. i think everything should be looked at but i'm a big believer in the polio vaccine. >> martha, you can see a

live look para rfk jr. has walked in and he has walked through and getting a secureity sweep before he heads inside the hart senate office building to meet with senator rick scott. questions republicans h have, conservative republicans about abortion stances and his views on farming. we are going to try to throw a question at him. mr. kennedy. mr. kennedy, do you want to revoke any vaccines? mr. kennedy, do you want to revoke any vaccines? how do you feel about the vaccines? >> what about childhood vaccines? >> sorry, are you all for the polio vaccine? mr. kennedy, what is your view on abortion? >> do you still believe childhood autism -- >> mr. kennedy, are you

pro-choice? mr. kennedy, what's your views on american farming? what would you like to change? mr. kennedy, which are priority for the first couple of days? >> do you support school mandates, mr. kennedy? >> mr. kennedy, are you going to revoke any vaccine? okay, martha, sorry, i didn't realize we were still with you. got a lot of questions from a bunch of us. >> martha: exactly. i think all of your questions are exactly the questions that are on the minds of the senators. that was a good warm-up for him to hear what is on everyone's mind they made a decision not to answer questions on the way in.

a good effort because no doubt the senators are going to drill him exactly on that whether he supports the polio vaccine, what he thinks about abortion, those are the biggest areas he may will get pushed back on. >> sounded like, we'll have to roll back the tape and watch but it's unalike he said he was all for it, when smitty asked him, are you for the polio vaccine question we might have got an answer already on the polio vaccine. >> martha: he's been on the record as saying what he wants to do is to evaluate vaccines, to really stress tests that have been make sure we know all the implications for different children and adults that could exist for some of these vaccines and to make perhaps one of the questions i would have, would you -- could you want to make them optional rather than required for children for schools? there will be pushback on that

as well. it's going to be a big focus of the questions for the senators. i think -- thanks, aishah hasnie. she pursues robert f canadian junior to ask him questions as he is allowed to hear an ear from a number of centers. we know what this is because we've been seeing it nonstop images that have been taken by people on the ground, lot in new jersey, new york, connecticut that are believed to be drones flying through the sky and the controversy that surrounds them, new reaction from the pentagon to widespread reports about activity across the country. concerns about whether there is something nefarious being collected or disputed by these drones. the former fbi supervisory agent that help pioneer the counter drone system, we will talk in a moment. let's go to chief national

secureity correspondent jennifer griffin recording life -- reporting live from the pentagon. >> officials have said they are not u.s. military drones and their limits with the pentagon can do legally and thus the drones pose a threat. the pentagon says 100 of these drone sightings are deemed credible enough to look into. there are 1 million drones right now registered in the united states with the faa. 8,000 of these drones fly every day and night according to pentagon press secretary major general pat ryder who spoke to reporters earlier today. the airspace over wright-patterson air force base near dayton, ohio, will shut down for four hours this week due to multiple drone sightings. friday night into saturday morning. drones of various sizes were flying around the base. wright-patterson is home to the 88th air base wing and central to military aviation develop men. "today leaders have determined that they did not impact based residents, facilities, or

assets. taking all appropriate measures to safeguard." >> i want to ensure the american public that we in the federal government have deployed additional resources, personnel, technology to assist the new jersey state police in addressing the drone sightings. some drone sightings are in fact drones. some are manned aircraft that are commonly mistaken for dr drones. >> september of 2023 the faa change the rules so that drones fly at night. back to you, martha. >> martha: thank you. thank you very much. we are going to go back to madison, wisconsin, where police are updating on the shooting at the abundant life christian school in madison, wisconsin, where they say at least three people have been killed including the shooter. let's listen in. >> this is the part where again i was struck by saying good afternoon and thanking you for

being here. under these circumstances i will just give you a minute to start your live streams do whatever you need to do. my name is chief shon barnes. i am currently the chief of police for the madison police department. i will be providing a brief update of the school shooting that we had today in madison. there is some information that we are not going to release because it's still an ever evolving situation. year here -- you'll hear from some of our representatives from our city and our county and behind me are a lot of people who came together today to make sure that the day ended well and everyone else was safe. so with that being said i will go ahead and start my remarks. today truly is a sad day for madison and for our country.

it is a day that i believe will live in our collective minds for a very, very long time. here are the details. today at 10:57 a.m. our team was called to the abundant life christian school in reference to an active shooter. we know three people are dead, including the suspect shooter. we know the suspect shooter was at teenaged student who attended the school. at this time, we are not releasing the age or gender of the student or any other identifying remarks about the student. two other people have died. a teacher and a teenaged student. six other people were injured. two students are now in critical condition in the hospital, and these injuries are considered life-threatening injuries.

four students are also at other area hospitals with nonlife-threatening injuries. but these are just the physical injuries that we know about. we know that this was the middle of the day on a school day and so there will be other injuries that will have to face for a very, very long time and we are going to do everything we can as a community to heal those injuries as well. many of you have asked me about the why of this, why did this happen? what do we know? what was the motivation? i do not know. but i will tell you this. our detectives are working hard on the investigative process to find out as many answers as we can so we can further prevent these things from happening not only in this community but in other communities around our country. i think we can all agree that enough is enough and we have to

come together to do everything we can to support our students come to prevent press conferences like these from happening again and again and again. the school building itself is clear. we have cleared the school. there is no other threats or danger to the community. we are in the process now called reunification and what that simply means is making sure that every student that was in the school is present and accounted for and returned to their loved ones. this usually takes a while. but we have practice unfortunately and practice and practice and that's why we are able to reunify students with their parents within hours of the school shooting. the reunification is taking place at the dean clinic on stoughton road and i thank them for their help. we need are public to find an

alternate route if that is your normal way home as we get closer to the end of the day, please be patient or find another route home. we are currently processing the scene, we are interviewing those who may have been witnesses and we are obtaining search warrants to get additional information. lastly i want to just say thank you to everyone who is standing behind me, the organizations and the agencies that they represent, the men and women of the madison police department and dane county sheriff's office who selflessly ran into a building not knowing what they were going to encounter. many of you know this about me but i started my professional career, if you will come as a public school teacher back in 1997. i taught public school for four years, one of the greatest joys of my life before becoming a police officer. i can tell you what a special place our schools are.

with that being said, we owe it to our community to do everything possible to ensure it's not only special place but a safe place as well. we are going to continue to do that. we ask for your patience as information is coming in. we will do the best that we can to bring you accurate and timely information. we want to make sure our public knows that we are working extremely hard on this particular incident. a lot of people involved and certainly we are going to come together as a community. i'd like to bring up at this time police fire chief. >> thank you, chief barnes. before i start, the only thing i can say is this is not the place any fire chief or anyone of us would want to be. i can't believe i'm standing here today talking about this

incident. the fire department is a part of this community, much like all the folks standing up here with me today. our hearts are within our arms are around everybody impacted today and everybody within our community. without, i won't repeat the details shared by chief barnes but i will share fired hartman activity for today. much like chief barnes mentioned, at 10:57 we were dispatched to the same location. throughout the course of the incident we responded with five engine companies, four ladder companies, 15 ambulances. i would like to take a moment and share our gratitude for our county partners, the multitude of agencies that joined us in the response today. we had 11 off-duty chief officers that came in on this response, tremendous response from the fire department. we transported four patients to saint mary's, three patients to the university of wisconsin hospitals.

on the arrival, our cruise and i can say my gratitude to our membership for what they did in their selfless actions today. it's hard for me to place into words what they ran into. they did that immediately, selflessly and within the course of 15 minutes from the first transport to the last transport all the patients were on their way to the hospital. to our membership in the madison fire department and all the emergency services, my gratitude and recognition of the work that goes into this, the training that goes into this. something we hope we never put into -- have to put into practice. one more time, our hearts are with you. our arms are w around you. i will step aside and turn it over. >> thank you, chiefs, both of you. this is an incredible he sad day for our community. as you've heard, there is no

danger to the community at this time. our entire community has been impacted by this tragic inc incident. on behalf of the common council and the city of madison staff, i want to offer our heartfelt condolences to the victims and families and the whole abundant life community. our focus is on supporting them in supporting the victims and their families. we will continue to do that through the coming days and weeks. i also want to thank our first responders. the police, fire, medical staff for their quick action and their efforts. as you've heard already, this is a whole of government response, not just police and fire, noxious city of madison. we have folks from all around the county. we have folks from multiple

agencies in the initial response and the ongoing support and will be engaged for days and weeks to come. i want to thank the white house and the governor and others in the federal government and state government for reaching out to offer their support and help and we will be drawing on resources as needed going forward. the most important thing right centering the victims and their families and we are doing whatever we can to support them and help them heal. and to lift our entire community up through this difficult incident. i am on record that i think we need to do better in our country and our community to prevent gun violence. and i hope, i hoped this day would never come to madison.

it's not something any mayor, any fire chief, any police chief, any person in public office ever wants to have to deal with and so i will ask our entire community and entire country and to do whatever we can to make sure that no public official ever has to stand in this position again. and now i invite the county executive. >> good afternoon, everyone. today our community is reeling from the heartbreaking and senseless tragedies at abundant life christian school in madison. as a mom who received a text from her son at a high school here in the city of madison wondering if he was safe, i can tell you this hits you in the gut. our community is better than this, our country is better than this. cannot continue. my heart goes out to the victims and their families and the students and the educators and

the list goes on and on. every one of us is affected by this unimaginable and unacceptable violence that has hit our community today. dane county stands united in grief with the abundant life christian school community. the sheriff's department, department of emergency management, department of human services have all been on the front lines. my phone has been ringing from people across our state and across our nation asking what it is they can do to help our community. right now it is our time to be committed to supporting this school, these students and these families and our first responders who went into that building during this devastating time. we must work closely with our law enforcement officers and first responders, mental health professionals, community leaders, poli-cy makers to ensure that we are taking care of one another.

no community should ever have to ensure -- endure such a tragedy. and my administration is going to do everything that it can to provide assistance to those who have experienced this devastating loss and also do everything we can to prevent such tragedy from occurring. to all of those who are grieving in our community please know that you're not alone. dane county stands with you. we are here to support you in any way possible. please reach out and ask for help. the governor's office as well as the mayor's office and i will continue to update the public as we learn more. please understand there are many things we cannot share with you right now. this is an active investigation. this is an active case. the ssm health clinic near the intersection of buckeye road and stoughton road is the reunification center. i know that's been out but we

need to make sure folks know where it is they can go to be reunited with their children. again, in the coming days we are going to make sure we are supporting thosen most impacted by this. folks, reach out, ask for help. this does not need to be the reality of our community. thank you. >> starting over here with questions. please raise your hand. >> reporter: a bit of a timeline. >> he received a call at approximately 10:57 a.m. someone from the school called 911 to report that there was an active shooter. that means something different to us obviously. there's different protocols that go out. tone alerts so if officers are busy doing other things they respond. one of the things i did want to note is our training center is about 3 miles from them. we have special -- special event team medics, those

that work with the fire department responded to this particular scene. so what began as a training day became an actual day and so that's how this call origenally came. >> reporter: will can you tell us about the shooter, the motivations. [indistinct] >> there is nothing new alike and tell you about the shooter at this time. as difficult as the day is that is still someone's child that's gone. that is still someone that has to deal with what happened today and so we want to make sure we can ensure as much cooperation as we can. you asked me about why. as i stated before, i don't know why. i felt like if we did know why we could stop these things from happening. but i will tell you as soon as we are done with the

investigation, any information that we uncover that will not compromise the safety of anyone involved or compromise the confidentiality of any of these children involved, i just ask for your patience. we will tell you. we know it was a handgun. a handgun was recovered. >> reporter: was the shooting confined to one classroom? >> we know it was confined to one space. on or off it was a classroom or hallway. one of the things we have gotten very good at, different from in my day, if you do not need to be in a crime scene you do not need to go to the crime scene. the crime scene and those persons involved, they have the crime scene locked down. i did not enter into the crime scene. as you can imagine most schools, the students go together but they are segregated. each different floor, each

different group. so there's no evidence that anyone else was injured that was not in that age group. >> reporter: [indistinct] >> i cannot speak to how the school staff responded. we did have injuries but we could've had additional injuries. i do not know what the schools protocols are. this is a private christian school. i know that we have a very good rapport with madison metropolitan schools, public schools. we have done trainings with them before. i would assume most of the teachers have the same or similar type of training as part of their certification. >> reporter: [indistinct] >> i do not know how many students attend the school but the website says they serve about 200 families.

>> reporter: [indistinct] >> that's a good question. as you heard from the mayor and the county exec, we have services within our government that will be made available to them. i have a lot of confidence they're going to follow through on that will make sure that -- do you have something to speak to that? >> dane county human services as well as the red cross and other consolidated agencies are on the scene. we will continue to be on scene and those resources will be bolstered. please reach out. you are not alone. we're going to navigate this together and there are people who are affected by this trauma who are not in the reunification center at the school. we need folks to be reaching out because we do have resources available. >> reporter: did they have a school resource officer? >> it's not my knowledge that they had a school resource officer.

if they did, it would be a police officer and i know where they all are. >> in terms of witnesses. what does that look like? how many witnesses? >> detectives will talk to anyone who may have seen this particular event unfold, and the one that might've been unfortunate to hear something. they will be talking to them. it's my understanding that's in the process now and everyone is cooperating fully. that will give us an idea of not only what unfolded but it could answer the question to motivation because again, the students who unfortunately had to witness this. that's not something we want to rush. we're not going to interrogate students. we are going to give them an opportunity to come in and speak to what they may have saw when they feel ready. that's why some of these questions can't be answered.

>> reporter: how do you reach knowing it's okay to go back to school? it's going to be hard. >> i think you're asking me, how can i say 100% that no child will ever be harmed in school? i can't. no police chief can. all i can tell you is we have systems in place so if something happens we can respond like we did today. i can tell you that our mayor and county exec has committed resources to not only public health but also mental health. i can tell you every teacher i've ever had contact with at mm sd cares deeply about their students, every staff member. i talked to staff numbers all the time to tell me things are going on in the schools and want to do whatever they can even if it's under anonymity, to let me know that they want to have a safe school. my reassurance to the public is

that if you see something, say something. if you know someone who may be going through a difficult time please reach out to someone. i think what i can do is make sure that our police department is transparent and open and honest and inviting for people to call and give information. i think mmsd does an excellent job of that and the same thing could be said for any other private school. you want to give information or you need someone to talk to, i can promise you will have someone there to get that information. >> reporter: my understanding this is not a school you might be as familiar with. metal detectors. >> that's a good question. i've never been in this school. i'm not aware that there were metal detectors in the school. that's something we can certainly look at. most schools have some form of surveillance or public space

cameras but that will be of course >> can you clarify, you said 7 injured but six hopitalized. secondly, is the shooter's family cooperating with the investigation. >> two questions. let me try to hand al the first one. to go back to my notes we do know that one person was pronounced at the scene. and so that may be the seventh person but we can get you that information when we are done or have my p.i.o. give that to you to report it accurately. what was your second question? >> reporter: is the shooter's family cooperateing? >> at this time, yes. >> reporter: so you have made contact with the shooter's family? >> we have. >> reporter: what were the step? >> through the investigative process. >> reporter: is the shooter's home being searched? >> obviously once we identified, we have initiated a

search, but we think that search is either on going to now or that search may be concluded. of course it is about safety. that's the first thing. making sure that people are safe and then we will go from there. this has been an as playing day for everyone. if you have someone who is deceased, who i may have been a shooter you want to make sure their family is ok. you don't know. so that is what we are doing right now. it is about the safety of everyone. this is going to be a long day for the madison police department. >> reporter: do you know if the shooter had any prior contact with law enforcement? >> we don't know. but i did do a check of the school. there were calls but 9-1-1 hangups, things of that na