Capitol Police Officer Killed, Suspect Dead After Incident At Capitol | NBC News

capital police are always there protecting this building particularly as we've noted on more than one occasion in this coverage since january 6 and the insurgency that we saw surround the capitol break into the capitol building police have been in a heightened uh state of awareness as a result of that uh monica alba continues to watch the developments here with me uh monica what more can you add erin so in the nature of these fast developing situations the u.s capitol police is offering a correction to their own tweet about the location so just wanted to make sure that viewers are aware this didn't occur along independence avenue as the u.s capitol police had said in their tweet it was a long constitution avenue some very key eagle-eyed viewers who know these shots in terms of what our camera is showing may have noticed that as well so that is important to note but some additional really key context here from my colleague frank thorpe who is a capitol hill reporter to also just add to this a little bit that barrier that you see there when the car has been stopped by it is something that is always up it's really only taken down when capitol police officers at the gate clear each individual vehicle so that's an important point in terms of this car they go through that barrier and then they would be swept by another set of officers who then puts down another set of barriers before they're even allowed closer and onto the capitol ground so this car in particular that blue vehicle we were showing you a few moments ago was two barriers away from getting to the actual capital building that you're seeing there so that is some key context in terms of where this gate was and where this occurred really a lot closer to that perimeter fence than to actually getting closer to it but since we've seen these perimeters really move as the security posture has been adjusted in the last couple of months it's important to say that at least this car somehow did break through at least one barrier or interrupt you was now nbc news special report this is an nbc news special report here's kristen welker good day everyone we are coming on the air with breaking news out of washington where the u.s capitol complex is on lockdown and people outside have been advised to take cover after what officials call an external security threat apparently a car ramming a barricade outside the capitol now shots have been fired our pete williams has been following this story and has the very latest developments of this ongoing breaking news pete what can you tell us kristen the best information we have is that this is on the senate side the constitution avenue side of the u.s capitol where this temporary fence was set up and a barricade was erected to keep cars that had to go through a checkpoint and a short time ago a little less than an hour ago that blue car that you're looking at ran past the barricade and would not stop hit two u.s capitol police officers injuring them and then we're told by two different law enforcement officials that the person in the car jumped out of the car with a knife and was then shot by u.s capitol police so we know of three people injured the driver of the car who was shot the two u.s capitol police officers who were struck by the car all three have been taken to the hospital we're told that the injuries of one of the capitol police officers is considered critical we don't know the condition of either the driver of the car or the other capitol police officer and we don't know anything about what this person's motive was what the background was where they came from it would seem to be more than just an accident if the person jumped out with a knife but you see the the sort of double barricade there the lower right portion of your screen is the temporary fence that is what's left now of what was originally put around the capitol after the january 6th riots in the capital and then you see uh the more permanent structure which is that that pop-up barricade that says stop there where the police where the car is struck that's obviously what stopped the car so it went through the checkpoint which is right above the word police on your screen where the capitol police officers were checking anybody who wanted to get further toward the capitol complex and that's the the senate side of the capitol that you see in the upper left of the screen and then the car kept going and these uh pop-up barricades are are down below even with the street and that normal traffic can can pass but they pop up to stop traffic and normally they are in the up position they are lowered to let cars through so the car hit that uh and we're told the driver jumped out with a knife but we don't know of any other injuries and as i say kristen this just happened within the past hour and so we're still learning much more minute by minute and peter as you point out there are already extra barricades all around the capitol in the wake of what happened on january 6th do we have any sense that investigators are concerned about any ongoing threat or at this point does it seem as though that driver in the car is it i think i think the answer the fair the honest answer to that question is they don't know yet they don't know much about the driver this just happened i have no other information to indicate there's any other threat it does this does seem to be quote unquote over but i think it's just too soon to say whether this is isolated or what else is going on here we just don't have those answers yet yeah the investigation just unfolding as we are talking i want to go now to leanne caldwell who is on the phone she has additional details she covers capitol hill for us and is overlooking what is transpiring right now leanne set the scene for us the capital as pete and i have been discussing already has had extra protection in the wake of what happened on january 6th what are you seeing right now well that's right kristin there is extra protection and that's why you see that black fencing uh in your screen with uh the spencing was put up after january 6th that's what's called the um some of the perimeter fencing and then there was another layer of fencing that went much broader that was actually taken down just two weeks ago um as you can see there is a big huddle of law enforcement that's including police and capitol police and there's national guard there as well lots of first responders uh i'm in the russell senate office building which is directly across the street from the capitol i'm you know i'm on the third floor but i'm about a hundred yards away from where this scene is right now and at about 103 the we got an announcement that we were on lockdown because of an external situation shortly after we heard many sirens racing through the scene and then shortly after that there was a helicopter that landed on the grass on the east front of the capitol that helicopter has since taken off but i can see very well the car that has crashed in to that security barrier that is the final security barrier between the public and the capital and those security security barriers were actually put into place um after september 11th after every tragic security threat there is more security that is put up around the capitol or not that car barrier that the car is currently clashed into was a post september 11th fix and so that as pete williams said is usually up i want to note that the capitol is relatively empty at this time it is good friday the house and the senate are both on their easter recesses they've been out all week members are in the district there's not a lot of staff a lot of some staff aren't even coming in anyway because of covid so that there's not too many people in danger at this point but it is quite a tragic scene especially after what this this area and the people that work here um have just been through after january 6th christine leanne let me follow up with you on that point you obviously have been going to the capitol almost every day in the wake of january 6th that assault against the u.s capitol when people stormed the seat of government breached the seat of government entered threatened members of congress the then vice president this has been an entire area that has been essentially on high alert to some extent can you set the scene for us leanne what it has been like to be at the u.s capitol in the wake of january 6th and why this extraordinary event coming on the heels of all of that will only add to the urgency and frankly concerns absolutely immediately after january 6 um people obviously were extremely rattled and scared and that's when you saw the national guard come in that's when you saw this black fencing that you now see put up and then as i said another layer put up there was barbed wire on top of the black fencing that has slowly started to be taken down there has been as time has passed since january 6 there has been a sense that perhaps the securities protocols and measures that have been put in place in the aftermath was too much an overreaction it had started to almost become a partisan um event the fact that of how much security should be in place as time had passed people started to feel more secure their the capitol police and intel law enforcement had said there was no specific direct threat that justified the extensive fencing so they were in the middle of putting plans in place to do something that people could live with perhaps not this very visual black you know fence around the capitol but something different so the plans were in place but one thing that did continue to concern law enforcement and capitol police that i spoke to were these kind of and i'm not saying that's what this is right now because we don't know yet but these rogue operators people you know you look at the white house christian you know that there are sometimes just individuals who do pose security threats and that is something that is continuously a challenge for capitol police as the overall threat people felt from you know militia groups and others coming to the capitol was lessening because there was no intelligence pointing to it at this point so you know as as time has passed people had started to feel more safe but others but it was still a very becoming a very political and partisan thing where there's so many democrats especially who wanted more security wanted things to be continued in this way while many republicans in some instances were saying that house speaker nancy pelosi was overreacted and needed to take things down so so this is going to perhaps very much changed that dynamic once again and the conversations around security which weren't even complete in the aftermath of january 6. in fact just really beginning on what the long-term security structure should look like especially since this is known as the people's house before covid flocks and flocks of tourists would come and tour the capitol on a daily basis we are a prime tour season right now the cherry blossoms are antique blooms there are tourists here not as many but usually those tourists are wandering the lawns of the capital wandering the halls of the capital and it has just not been that way leanne such incredible reporting and for our viewers who are just joining us let's just recap what it is that we are covering as we come on the air at this hour a driver as you see there attempted to breach or ram into the u.s capitol building according to our pete williams two law enforcement officials are telling him that after striking two u.s capitol police officers that driver jumped out of the car with a knife and was then shot by capitol police three people taken to the hospital our casey hunt who was there on january 6 as well who has been tracking not just this story but the developments in the wake of january 6th and of course we do not know if there is any connection at all between the two this investigation is still very much in its early stages but casey has been there nearly every day as well casey give us your sense of what is unfolding at this hour well kristin just to to pick up on on your recap here you're looking at a car that rammed into a barrier in a driveway that leads to the united states capital it's on the senate side it's important to know there are still two more sets of barriers before this car would have actually gotten to the capitol and these are barriers that are up at all times they only come down if there is someone that's allowed to be driving through who needs to pass and that's why there's multiples because then they can raise the second one behind a car that's come in safely so i think it's important to note that this is a security posture and measure that this was in place before january 6th it will continue after january 6. now of course this car could not have gotten to where it was if all of the security surrounding the capital was still in the posture that was developed in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection because for quite some time there was no traffic allowed at all on constitution avenue and for those who don't live in the nation's capital but perhaps have been here to visit or know have seen pictures of the washington monument constitution avenue is one of those two wide avenues that span the national mall on the north and the south side and constitution on the north side and if you were to continue going down the hill eventually on your left you'd see the washington monument eventually the lincoln memorial so that's where this car is and for a time after the insurrection the a section of constitution avenue was shut to traffic you couldn't drive on it you couldn't drive anywhere inside that complex on any of those roads that you see on your screen right now if you didn't have a badge and a reason to be there now they withdrew that because there is this importance as leanne was just talking about and this feeling that this should be the people's house that there shouldn't be these major roadblocks these are major regular roads people commute on every day in washington obviously that's been dialed back because of the pandemic but it was very significant that they were shut and so it was deemed important that they be reopened and so that's why this car was able to get even to the point where it is now you mentioned pete williams new reporting that these officers the car the officers were struck by the car the point i want to make about that as well is that the u.s capitol police has just had the most difficult two to three months uh probably in the history of the outfit they have been working overtime through weekends they went through something incredibly traumatic they were targeted on january 6th and so to have something like this happen to have two more of their own fallen very very significant blow to a force that already has been through so much and if those officers were to have been struck by this car keep in mind they would not have had to be in between and i'm sorry christian go go ahead no what what a critical point that you raise and i'm glad you give that perspective and that background about the difficult months that the capitol police officers have had pete williams does have some new information casey let me go back to him so that we can just get that quick update pete what do you have so we're getting a little fuller picture here of what happened the car ran the barricade struck two officers the driver jumped out with a knife and was shot but before the driver was shot we're told that the driver the person with the knife did attack one capitol police officer potentially cutting that police officer in the face and i don't know whether that is one of the two officers that were struck by the car or a third officer so it's not clear to me yet whether we have three people injured here or four the driver plus either certainly two capital police officers and possibly a third we're trying to get clarification on that now as i said all three of those and potentially four but all those who were injured were taken to the hospital the driver is in custody but is in the hospital kristen pete as we've been saying this investigation just getting underway it is worth underscoring pete we don't know anything about the motive yet at this hour correct correct we know nothing about the driver all right and and just to recap quickly again a vehicle ramming into a barricade outside of the u.s capitol injuring two u.s capital police officers we know the fbi also investigating our correspondence on capitol hill and of course the justice department also investigating trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened here and we are going to continue to bring you updates throughout the day at this hour it appears as though three people have been taken to the hospital in the wake of this incident we will have full details coming up on nbc nightly news for now i'm kristen welther in washington good day everyone [Music] i'm aaron gilchrist in new york you're watching nbc news now live coverage of the breaking story in washington d.c two u.s capitol police officers have been injured after someone rammed a barricade outside the u.s capitol complex you're looking at live pictures from several different angles of the scene what we know at this point is that sometime around one o'clock this afternoon a car was able to make its way to one of the barriers that is always up outside the u.s capitol building along constitution avenue that would be the side of the capitol that runs uh between uh the the capital itself and the senate office buildings so the senate side of the u.s capitol that car hit one of the barricades and as we understand it from sources uh our justice correspondent pete williams has been able to talk to the person hit that barricade and then jumped out of the car we believe with a knife two u.s capitol police officers engaged with that suspect on some level we as we understand it those two officers were injured the person who was in that car with the knife as we understand it was shot all three of them had been taken to a hospital in the area dc fire and ems has been able to verify that information for us and now we are left with the scenes that you see on your screen at this point the car slammed up against that barricade uh investigators obviously from u.s capitol police we understand the fbi has been brought in to assist as well you can see investigators taking photos walking around this vehicle gathering information on the lower part of your screen on the right side here you see several black suvs with flashing lights the top part there you see an aerial picture of the capital complex that has been locked down in a sense we don't believe that it was heavily occupied at this point because congress is not in session still the campus has been locked down as a result of this of the threat that that we see has happened outside now we have monica alba one of our white house reporters who's been watching this scene with us as well trying to gather information monica what's the latest you can tell us about what's unfolding in washington erin it seems per law enforcement officials and also those on the scene that at least this immediate security threat has been contained given that everybody involved it seems at this point has been transported to the hospital what is so notable there is our that new reporting from our colleagues tom winner and pete williams that the person who did ram this barrier and who got through that initial perimeter fencing then got out of the vehicle brandishing a knife and that is what led the u.s capitol police to shoot that person but we also know of course that those some of those officers were injured when the vehicle hit them and that barrier just so people can understand sort of where it is situated is at least two roadblocks removed from getting very close to the u.s capitol but this fencing that's in place right now anybody who enters the complex has to show id proving that they work there have business at the capitol it's a heavily controlled system for who can come and go so clearly this person rammed that barrier regardless of whatever checks were going on and we are waiting to get more information about that but this is also notable because just in the last few weeks or so erin a larger perimeter fence was removed there was so much non-scalable fencing around all the u.s capital complex with barbed wire on top that actually got taken down because a couple of months removed from the january 6 violence lawmakers and people had really called for that to be scaled down for there to be less of a national guard presence protecting the capital but this inner fence was always going to remain in place given the heightened alert and security posture that we expect to remain for the coming weeks at least until president biden gives his joint address to congress which is something else that law enforcement has been monitoring as a potential high alert day as you would with any presidential movement but certainly one where this president would go to the u.s capitol which we haven't seen for that kind of an event so at least that's the posture for now i just mentioned the president he's actually not at the white house and wasn't while this was taking place he landed at camp david shortly before 1pm he left the white house in the noon hour on marine one so via helicopter for the easter weekend and we don't have any official white house reaction yet either on whether he's been briefed you can imagine that he is he's always traveling with a group of aides who bring him up to speed on any national security issues but we don't have a statement yet from the president or the white house officially reacting to the security incident i can tell you here from where i'm standing aaron just above the white house there's always a lot of security here again given the last few months but really since the coronavirus pandemics and some of the protests over racial justice that we've seen over the last few months here in the nation's capital you have a huge fence around the white house as well that has stayed in place and they haven't removed that but the fencing even that protects the white house itself 1600 pennsylvania avenue is something that's been increased because you did have a situation where a car rammed a barrier some years ago so this is now of course happening closer to the capitol where congress we should mention is not in session so lawmakers aren't there but there are journalists inside because we continue to constantly report on what's happening on capitol hill given all of the major news that's breaking around other legislative priorities and we know that our colleagues down there on the other end of pennsylvania avenue remain sheltered in place given this heightened posture as we wait more information from officials who hopefully will brief in the next hour or so to provide even more background on what occurred here erin all right monica alba for us near the white house right now monica i'm going to ask you to stand by and we'll come back to you as you're able to gather more information we also have with us alana trine she's a capitol hill white house correspondent for axios elana you there i'm here yes let me ask you let me ask you uh i saw one of our live pictures here just again we just saw it looks like a soldier maybe some national guard folks we know they were close by uh who appeared to be in riot gear from what i could see with the shield and the and the the helmet with the mask pulled down in front of it um what are you seeing from your vantage point there were reports about helicopters in the area as well what can you tell us oh well aaron i am not in the capitol right now as you can probably see but i was there this morning and i think just one thing to note um is and monica did a great job describing this but the lessened security presence just in the past several weeks um i was uh at the capitol on january 6 during uh the insurrection and then have essentially been there every day since and uh really we we saw this extremely heightened security presence with these uh with with the fences and with a large number of national guardsmen that has been reduced significantly in the past several weeks um as we've gotten farther away from january 6 and i i thought that this morning when i was walking in to the building um how much you know how how much less fencing there is how fewer guardsmen that were present of course about i left around 11 30 about an hour and a half later is when um we've initially heard of the car uh ramming into that barricade um and from my sources who are on the ground and and other colleagues who um were are there right now uh it seems that they are still locked down uh waiting to hear more but the the scene does seem contained now that they have um an officer had shot the person who was driving as well as the other two officers who have seemed to be injured were taken to the hospital um i think it's worth noting that there was a helicopter that came i haven't really heard of anything like that in my time covering congress a helicopter flew down to remove those who were injured as well as the suspect and we still don't know what the motive is i think we're waiting uh to hear what what motivated this person who they were why uh they they drove in to the barricade uh this afternoon and so i think we're all waiting to to hear more from u.s capitol police and they're they're starting to to kind of give out more information now to reporters like myself and we're standing by to hear what new developments there might be all right alana i'll ask you to stick with us give you an opportunity to check for more information that may be coming your way as we look at some of the live pictures coming from capitol hill right now i believe this is a helicopter shot from our affiliate there in washington wrc uh obviously washington is a no-fly zone so the helicopter is far outside the district itself uh zooming into the capital complex showing us several of the buildings that are in uh that are part of that complex buildings that would be under that lockdown along with the capital uh itself uh alana mentioned the uh helicopter possibly having come in that likely would have been a u.s park police helicopter they have a launch pad u.s park police have a launch pad uh just a couple of miles away from the capitol building itself across the anacostia river uh i lived in washington for many years and uh in the navy yard area which is just a couple of blocks away from the capitol complex and so that helicopter i've seen it i've been to that to their launch pad they would have been able to dispatch the chopper very quickly when there was a shooting at the navy yard several years ago that helicopter was used to airlift people who had been injured or people who had been hiding at the navy yard to safety and so they would be able to come into the capitol complex very quickly uh and as alana noted possibly lift an injured person away and take it take them to a medical facility for treatment although we did also see dc firing ems respond there as well monica alba has been watching the uh this story uh develop with me monica what more can you tell us well we're getting our first reaction aaron from congressional leadership we have a tweet from minority leader mitch mcconnell who says praying for the united states capitol police officers who were attacked at the capitol we are still learning what's taken place grateful to all the u.s cp and first responders who are on the scene so that's the real first official reaction we're hearing from again leadership on capitol hill who we should point out aren't actually physically there because they're back in their residences and in their home towns and districts given again that congress is not in session so that's the first we're hearing we're waiting to get more nothing official yet from the white house or from speaker nancy pelosi's office for instance but another little bit of color that i can provide for you here through our colleague julie sirkin who is on the ground she capital she covers capitol hill and she is really noting a high presence of more national guard troops who have now marched to that area and they're carrying shields so they are also still in a posture where some of them are even telling her this is still a very active and fluid situation and they were told essentially to march over there in high numbers she says she sees dozens and dozens who are there just in case there are also more ambulances and police cars and they're being extremely strict as you can imagine with who can come and go at this moment given everything is in lockdown something else that our other reporters who cover the justice department are confirming to us now the fbi is involved in the response you might even see them in some of these images with their notable windbreakers that say it in bright yellow letters they are on the scene already also responding to what just happened in the last hour or so here erin monica i know you've been you've been monitoring what's been coming out of the white house about this and and gensake this happened right as she was wrapping up a press briefing today so there wasn't a lot of information from there the president though even though he was traveling we know he travels with staff there likely would have been someone uh receiving information about what happened at the capitol right i mean the president would at this point even at camp david would have to know something is going on absolutely and i can tell you actually exactly who the president and first lady are traveling with that's typically something the white house would release anyway on any given movement they let us know which group of personal aides and other support staff are accompanying him and on something like this even though it's a holiday weekend he's the president of the united states he's always going to have aids around him who can bring him up to speed on national security issues domestically and internationally so today he is accompanied by bruce reed who's the deputy chief of staff johannes abraham who is associated with the national security council anthony bernal who's an adviser to the president and the first lady and then stephen gopher who is also a personal aide so those are just the people who basically would be with him on marine one and then once he has arrived at camp david which he did in the last hour or so they are never far away in case anything like this happens and they're the ones who are going to be coordinating the information flow to the president and then of course making decisions about whether the president would need to speak to the nation issue a statement all of that is being evaluated right now and yes jen saki was mid briefing even though the president had already left the building for the easter weekend she was still answering reporter questions while this was all unfolding and our own kelly o'donnell posed to her whether she knew about this incident or if there were any updates she could provide she said she would check and get back to us given again she was basically briefing as this was still developing but she was also quick to point out that again with any issue the president is always accompanied by people for this very same reason so then they can brief him and then they can make decisions about what would happen next i think it is notable like with any of these very fast-moving law enforcement situations erin they're taking their time at least from this perspective to try to gather more information learn more before issuing any kind of statement but i think also the fact that this overarching reaction from the minority leader mitch mcconnell seems to be the capitol police it's clear were attacked they felt attacked their own officers were injured we've con we have been able to confirm and if you really think about everything that this force has gone through over the last nearly three months that is very significant and can't be ignored here given the backdrop of the january six attacks but we also know from capitol hill there's a lot of debate now aaron about whether they're going to study this or do a similar 911 style commission report into the security failures and again we know that they felt confident enough to remove the very outer perimeter fencing and go back to just the inner perimeter fencing that clearly they must have felt there wasn't as much of a risk or security threat given the comparison to what we saw in the weeks following the insurrection at the capitol but as you can see again from this vehicle those barriers did their job they are always going to be up and only removed once capitol police have said a car can enter the premises and again this one was actually two full barriers away but that fencing that you see there is what is likely to remain in place for a long time to come given january 6th and what we are seeing here today aaron all right monica hang with us here i i want to stop down for a bit here and just sort of uh reset a little bit for you first the the picture the larger picture you're seeing in your screen here is just outside uh the fencing the the barricading that was put up uh uh in around the beginning of this year and the january 6 riots that we saw there a large law enforcement presence here uh it looks like there's some leadership from u.s capitol police at least and so we expect that we could be getting a statement some sort of a briefing from leadership there with capitol police at any moment now we're going to try to make sure we can bring that to you if it happens at this point the only official statement that we've seen from u.s capitol police is the tweet that they put out a little less than an hour ago saying that they were responding to the north barricade vehicle access point on constitution avenue for reports of someone having rammed a vehicle into two capital police officers they said then in that statement that a suspect was in custody that the officers had been injured and that all three of them the two officers and the suspect had been taken to the hospital so that was the official statement the only official statement we've gotten from u.s capitol police as the story's been unfolding monica alba again watching this with me and trying to gather more information as we go monica erin we're learning more from our colleagues tom winner and jonathan deans who of course covers new york city and they are reporting that the suspect in the u.s capitol attack that we've seen here is dead after being shot by police citing multiple law enforcement officials who were briefed on the investigation so again that's coming from our own nbc news investigations team that the suspect does appear to be dead so that is a headline here that of course we could be getting more details on as you mentioned once we hear an actual briefing from officials but we're also learning more from senior law enforcement officials who tell my colleagues that it does appear one of the officers was slashed in the face by this knife-wielding suspect we know that after this person rammed through the barrier got to that giant white portion and barricade that stopped it that that person did get out of the car brandished a knife it seems obviously according to this reporting citing a law enforcement official got close enough to attack one of the officers and slash them in the face according to jonathan deinst and that person the officer has been transported to the hospital and we know there are several who are injured it wasn't just this one person so that is the latest all of this is very fast moving and breaking at this moment but we are getting just more and more information trickling in here aaron so that's the latest all right monica thank you for that and and i can't help but to note that this is uh in my memory the second time that uh as we believe someone's died here the second time that u.s capitol police have been put in a position where they've had to engage with someone who tried to breach the security apparatus that surrounds the u.s capitol and that person has been shot and died in 2013 there was another incident where a car approached the u.s capitol refused some of the orders to stop and then slammed into a barricade before the woman who was in that car at the time back in 2013 who was then shot and died as a result of having come into the capital complex the way that she did we also have one of our believer producers on the phone with us julie sirkin has been uh julie you're inside the capitol hey erin no i'm actually outside of the capitol right now okay tell us what you know you've you've been uh reporting out on this quite a bit over the last hour what do you know yeah so i'm standing right now about a block from where the incident took place i actually watched as around three dozen national guard troops march towards me with shields uh fully armed they have all equipment on them right now to kind of guard this barricade and they close of course all the entrances surrounding where the scene took place i'm still seeing ambulance a really heavy presence of police cars a few blocks down just to give you a perspective of my location i am adjacent to the supreme court and by the senate office buildings because that's where the incident of course took place uh and as you mentioned earlier uh of course congress is not in session right now the senators and house members are not in the buildings um so when this breach happened there was no one uh from government inside the building but right now outside it's a really chaotic scene and the national guard troops the numbers just spindled down in the last few weeks and these barricades in front of me are now not here because they decided to lighten up security um and we're almost three months out from january 6 when that insurrection happened but again this incident happening our colleagues reported this appears to be a lone wolf and he the suspect was reportedly shot it's a chaotic scene out here the press aren't being allowed in we're sort of standing on the outskirts i tried to get in at different entrance points i sort of walked the perimeter and cops were really much just trying to figure things out and getting everything together i watched as national guard troops came out of the various office buildings to take their posts uh they're fully armed um and it appears to be a pretty chaotic situation right now as things are unfolding and they're trying to secure the perimeter here aaron so julie does it seem to you as though these you mentioned the national guard troops does it seem as though they were already nearby with their gear or that they were brought in to to and i know the dc armory the national guard armory is only uh two or three miles away from the capitol complex but were they already in that area and then immediately moved to those posts or do you think they were brought in so that's a good question of course there were some national guard troops remaining obviously nowhere near the levels they have been after the attacks but they did lessen the guard presence in the last few weeks and i watched like i said them coming out of the office buildings so i'm coming out of the office buildings i'm actually going to the scenes and i cover congress so i see the troops here every single day they're not as nearly as present as they were but but i think that these troops that are here right now um if not all of them some of them at least came out of the office buildings that are nearby uh because of course they kept some level of troops here but again this is nowhere near the level it's been i mean even now i'm looking at this barricade and it seems like they brought out all the troops they had to kind of support the capital complex in the capitol police right now and there's about three and a half dozen of them here and i watched them march from the scene where the ambulance ambulances and police cars still are right now and julie what's their posture do they i we saw in some of our live pictures that they were wearing their uh what looked like riot gear they had shields they had helmets that were with mass pulled down do they have they taken on a defensive posture as though they're blocking something maybe anticipating something or they just sort of there just in case yeah i mean it's hard to say right because their job is to always protect whatever assignment they're deployed to but they are in full riot here they have facials they have uh regular shields they have their weapons in tow multiple guns even the officers here um and they're kind of standing in front of the barricade in one line some officers on the outskirts appear you know not as tense not as uh kind of ready to spring into action but the ones that are blocking the fences here this is usually on a typical day where traffic can pass through they're standing in the entrance uh in the far right sort of of the senate side of the capital complex uh those of you who aren't familiar with it it's you know it takes up a pretty large amount of space and like i said the supreme court is right to the left of them so where this incident took place is in a saturated area on a typical day when the senate is in session and even when i walked around on the house side of the capitol which is of course on the opposite side of where this attack took place uh the cops there told me you know you can go in this side and they said never mind no you can't um and i was sort of walking in circles just you know showing them my congressional press badge and then eventually they said you're not allowed to enter anywhere near here so in the last 20 minutes or so uh when the national guard troops marched up the barricades here you know this is this is still unfolding um like i said the troop level definitely decreased in the last few weeks but there are still troops inside the capital complex and it's important to remember that just a few weeks ago the fencing here would have still been up um and now of course completely bare and julie last thing i'll ask you about uh the reports about helicopters having uh landed or at least to come to the the capitol complex were you able to see or hear any helicopters in the time that you've been there yes so um actually even now just a few moments ago i heard and i saw a helicopter swirling around really you know in the last hour or so trying to take a better look at the scene as this was all unfolding one officer even just a half an hour ago i asked if it was still an active shooter situation before we knew that the suspect was apprehended and he told me he honestly doesn't know it could be and so they're really on guard here on high alert after what happened in the city just three months ago next week and so this is very much still unfolding they are still very on alert in their security posture and we just learned actually in in 20 minutes that capitol police are planning to give a press conference which is notable because this is their first press conference uh since the attack happened on january 6th as well absolutely julie i'll give you a moment to uh to look around a little bit more and see what else you may be able to report for us we'll come back to you alana trine a reporter with axios is also joining us uh right now alana you've been working some of your sources as well have you been able to gather more information i have yes i think the thing that is raising a lot of eyebrows now is that u.s capitol police as julie said is going to be holding a briefing now uh around 2 45 p.m is what they're they're aiming for and this is a big deal uh one of the biggest criticisms of u.s capitol police and the fallout of the january 6 attack was that they weren't transparent they weren't good at communicating what was happening on the ground in real time uh they didn't hold a briefing um and it's something we've seen now in these hearings since the january 6 insurrection um that they've been criticized for and so looks like they're starting to learn some of their mistakes and and writing it now this time following today's attack um we're still trying to hear more i know that there's been some reporting about um the the the condition of the driver um i've heard from some of my sources and some of my security sources on the hill that he he does seem that when he was shot he he's now dead um i think we're still waiting for confirmation from u.s capitol police on that uh but that is something that more and more uh some of my sources and other networks i see are reporting i think we'll hear more about that at the 2 45 briefing um i would just note that this is uh you know this is something that is not common at the capitol but we've seen this um you know some really scary events happened in the last few months following january 6 and it's been a lot on u.s capitol police and these national guardsmen and i think it'll be interesting some questions i'm already hearing from from different aides and and top aides to different lawmakers is whether some of the fencing that was taken down in recent weeks will be put back up whether president biden will uh continue uh to move forward with his plans to hold a joint address in front of congress so that's supposed to be coming in the next several weeks closer to the 100 day mark which is rapidly approaching on april 30th no word yet whether this changes those plans uh and also what kind of security will remain at now um given what's happened i think a lot of people who are on the hill like julie who is just on the program are still on lockdown people are not being able to enter or leave the complex i imagine that will continue for the next um potentially few hours hopefully people are able to move around shortly but again it does seem contained and we should be hearing from u.s capitol police soon all right alana from uh axios force alana thank you very much and and we'll note too as we approach 2 30 here on the east coast that we do anticipate a news conference from u.s capitol police around 2 45 this afternoon 2 45 eastern time we'll of course be monitoring for that and we'll bring it to you as it happens tom winter our correspondent for investigations has been gathering information about what's happened here at the capitol tommy there yes i've got you uh aaron um so a couple of things that we're working on and we're learning about at this point that vehicle that's crashed up against the barricade the initial indications that we had heard or or were suspected i should say is that the capitol police officers that were injured as a result of this incident were injured because they were ran by the car that appears that it may not be the case in fact the suspect who we now understand multiple law enforcement officials telling myself and my colleagues jonathan dinst and pete williams that the suspect is deceased after being shot by police but apparently when that suspect exited that blue vehicle tried to or may in fact have stabbed the capitol police officers or at least one of them and that's what may have led to their serious injuries and then of course the suspect was shot by police and has now we are told died as a result of those injuries now we don't know yet where this vehicle came from we don't know uh information about the suspect that we're feeling comfortable to share at this point we want to be very clear about that and make sure that we have that information confirmed when we do report it so the initial indication in information from the scene is that this was some sort of a criminal incident or attack uh that this person uh tried to get through that barricade crashed into it exited the vehicle with a knife and may have in fact stabbed one or more capitol police officers before being shot themselves we're told the person is a male not going to share any other information just yet as we try to confirm that but that male suspect was shot taken in the hospital and has now died as a result of those injuries as far as a motive as you might imagine it is far too soon to know that at this point the suspect would know what their motives motive or motives were or are and that suspect is now dead so that's going to make things a little bit more complicated you can be assured in this day and age with license plate readers and the information that law enforcement has at its fingertips that who owns that car and any sort of registration information that that would be known to them already but as we've seen in other incidents that doesn't necessarily mean um that that person is the person who is involved in the incident the vehicle could be stolen it could be a rental car so we are just being extra cautious on that information as law enforcement is being extra cautious to make sure they know who they're dealing with here and that's the latest on this investigation so far and obviously we'll continue to get you some more information as we get it tom in some of our earlier coverage uh pete williams indicated that the one of the officers who was injured may be in critical condition what update do you have about the injuries that the officers in this incident sustained yeah pete's uh a little bit more dialed in because of being in washington dc and because he's pete to uh to that specific part of it so yes it does sound like one of those officers is in critical condition obviously a number of police officers injured one dying as a result of the capital capital attack on january 6. so this has been a particularly troubling time in trying time for the united states capitol police department tommy you sort of referenced the fact that uh the law enforcement on the scene here likely already know uh who the the person who was in that car is and have started to check into the the vehicle itself um would that sort of indicate that there are tentacles the fbi for example that's now that are now sort of reaching out into wherever to figure out who this person was what their motive was uh who they know and trying to get some answers outside of the scene that we're seeing in these live pictures that's exactly correct so what would happen typically in an investigation like this and i'm not saying specific to this case but typically what happens based on the people that do this type of work that i've spoken with in the past they would immediately look at the registration of the vehicle uh once they took the suspect during the process process of taking the suspect to the hospital they would uh go into their wallet to try to find some sort of an identification see if that matches the person in the vehicle but even then somebody could come up with a fake identification could have stolen the vehicle could be a rental car and so that information would be a little bit more uh difficult to get or you would at least want to confirm it from there they would look for a criminal history uh in their database is there anything that they know about that person do they have finger prints already on file uh any sort of criminal information through the fbi cgis database and then from there you would begin to work backwards and say okay if they know who the person is do they have a social media profile did they leave anything behind in the car is there anything there that could immediately tell us if there's anybody else who could possibly be involved another piece of information that they may want to get is obviously any sort of motive that would be indicated uh either through the social media posts or through something left behind in the vehicle try to speak with those officers as they are trying to be treated obviously and see if those officers can say anything about any statements that the suspect gave if they gave any in in the course of exiting that vehicle was there anything that they've shouted or said we've seen that in other incidents and attacks in the past and that's been incredibly helpful so those are things that uh that's all kind of the initial work that needs to be done here and you want to of course make sure that you're not going to have somebody else involved in a similar type attack that this person may have been working with though i suspect we would have seen that already all right tom winter uh bringing us up to speed on on how this investigation is likely to be folding out in the first few minutes here uh monica alba is also with us she's in washington has been watching this unfold and gathering information monica there still appears to be a very large law enforcement presence uh we saw some some men in uniform in in military uniforms there as well uh likely from the d.c national guard what more can you tell us about what's unfolding at the scene here right now huge law enforcement presence erin that's right and i expect that will continue we're getting a little bit more information about the role that the d.c national guard is playing here we know of course that guardsmen from all across the country were brought in in the weeks after the january 6 attack to protect the capital and remember it wasn't uncommon to see hundreds of them loading buses and to be coming in and out for their shifts remember in those early days even sleeping on the floor of capitol hill in the hallways before cots were brought in and they could make for more accommodations in nearby hotels so we know with that context that the national guard represented from all over has been brought in but the d.c national guard specifically today according to a tweet deployed an immediate response force which was composed of national guard soldiers and airmen to the capitol conflicts to support the u.s capitol police and they couldn't get into more details they said given again this immediate response force but it was something that was done so quickly and that's what i think is really notable here as well when we look at the time frame the fact that officials are set to brief in just 10 minutes or so that is really really notable given the fact that after the events of january 6 we didn't even get an immediate briefing from the u.s capitol police it took so long to get more information from them and from law enforcement so a very different approach today because of course also it's a very different scale and that's important to point out here as well the fact that this is one vehicle ramming through a barrier but that did injure u.s capital officers and there's a lot that we don't know again regarding motive but now that we're starting to get more details about the suspect who was taken into custody and we can report and confirm according to law enforcement officials now who's dead we're going to get even more information but look at what's on your screen right now it's just dozens and dozens of law enforcement officials on the ground and then a huge variety of vehicles of ambulances and police cars and then outside of that you see sort of a ring of dozens and dozens of these national guardsmen who also were deployed with shields so they're in a little bit more of an active posture than what you would see in the last few weeks i live in a neighborhood very close to there and you really have now become very accustomed to interacting with these national guardsmen who have been deployed but really they're usually just more casually behind the fence monitoring making sure everything's okay so we're seeing a very very heightened and different security element to this now given what we just saw over the last couple of hours but the fact that we're about to get a lot more detail speaks to the urgency and some of the new leadership perhaps that was installed here for the u.s capitol police and other agencies because of what experts say was such a failure in terms of what we saw in the initial response on january 6. so all of that is playing a new role in this narrative of getting us information more quickly we saw those tweets really come very rapidly just in the hour or so after the event and now we're also getting a lot more reaction from lawmakers aaron who again we should remind viewers are not physically present at the capitol because congress isn't in session right now they're due to come back on monday but we are hearing from people like the minority leader and other house leadership who are really putting the focus right now on the capitol police officers extending prayers for them thinking of them and their families given that we know at least a couple of them are injured so i think we can expect to get more on their situations and how they're doing right now especially those who are transported to the hospital from officials here and again the one thing we're also really waiting on that is a little bit unusual given how much time has passed we don't have any white house reaction at this point we know that the white house press secretary is in the building behind me she is still here at work monitoring the situation even though the president is at camp david surrounded by a much smaller group of aides who are ostensibly bringing him up to speed on this but what's also a little bit unusual and unique to the camp david presidential retreat erin is that this is a place where the president travels to but press do not accompany him which is one of the only places where that's the case when the president goes to delaware for the weekend for instance or he would take marine one or air force one there's always a group of journalists who would travel with him but camp david is actually an exception given it's outfitted to really be another executive residence and retreat and he has all of the security and infrastructure there in place it's about a 40-minute chopper ride away so he left in the noon hour he arrived before 1pm but we haven't heard from him we haven't gotten any kind of a statement from the white house either but you can expect that he's been briefed and when we do have that we will bring it to you all right monica alba for us near the white house right now in washington monica thank you for that uh we'll reiterate that we do anticipate a briefing from u.s capitol police in the next few minutes here i want to bring in uh jim kavanagh who is an msnbc nbc news contributor retired atf special agent in charge former nahash's negotiator jim you and i have had a few conversations in instances like this where we've watched scenes of this nature unfold i want to just get your your expert uh perspective on what's happening in washington right now well it looks like a you know a one person attack with a vehicle against the police officers you know they would be at the gate that you saw just when you when you panned back from that uh steel barricade that's implanted in cement that's a hydraulic barricade when that thing goes up you know nobody's going to bust through that but there's a gate in front of that maybe 40 feet or so and that's where the officers would normally be they would not be standing by that metal um barricade so you know if the car hit the officers then continued past them crashed into that barricade of course airbags went off trunk flew open frontage smashed and then the assailant exits the vehicle pete reported pete williams reported that the capitol police officer slashed in the face with a knife and the assailant was shot and now he's deceased so uh that sounds like what's transpired you know an attack with a knife and a car a car first then a knife against the uniform police officers looks like what we have you know is it in his mind an attack on the citadel of democracy or is it an attack on the uniformed police or is it just a suicide by cop we don't quite know yet jim i want to point out for folks again just as we are approaching 2 45 now that we are anticipating a news conference i believe we have some pictures uh from where this is going to be happening we uh can tell you that we expect we're going to hear from the capitol police chief as a matter of fact it looks like a delegation of folks working their way you look at the toward the top of your screen there on the left those are the sorts of uniforms that you anticipate leadership wearing and so i would expect that we're going to hear from the u.s capitol police chief chief pittman the acting police chief there at the capitol when we do get some more information about what unfolded here at the u.s capitol along with some people from the uh from the fbi other folks who've been brought in jim cavanaugh this is a a sort of incident where many of the dozens of law enforcement agencies that are in washington dc would come together to get control of a scene and then begin investigating trying to come up with some answers about what happened here right all right it seems we may have jimmy there go ahead jim yeah i'm here yeah i said the united states capitol police has their own detective bureau and you see those detectives are walking around the car already and so you know they start the investigation they'll be assisted by the other agencies of course but i mean it's their ticket as we say they're the first ones it's their man or woman that was assaulted and they're going to start the investigation right there now the other agencies uh are going to help them make sure there's no uh the capitol police has their own bomb squad and they're very good so they're going to make sure that the car is you know not uh have a bomb in it and here comes the chief jim how much more difficult is it in an instance like this where the suspect is dead and you you as a law enforcement agency there's no person to interrogate you have to figure out other ways actually jim an nbc news special report beginning right now [Music] this is an nbc news special report here's kristen welker good day everyone capitol police are briefing on that fatal security incident outside the u.s capitol this afternoon when a suspect rammed a car into a barrier and then wielded a knife at capitol police officers at least two injured and the driver was killed let's listen exited the vehicle with a knife in hand our officers then engaged that suspect he did not respond to verbal commands the suspect did start lunging toward u.s capitol police officers at what at which time u.s capitol police officers fired upon the suspect at this time the suspect has been pronounced deceased two u.s capitol police officers were transported to two different hospitals and it is with a very very heavy heart that i announced one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries we are not able to release any information names age date of birth or anything of that nature at this time because we still have to notify the next of kin i just asked that the public continue to keep u.s capitol police and their families in in your prayers this has been an extremely difficult time for u.s capitol police after the events of january 6 and now the events that have occurred here today so i ask that you keep our u.s capitol police family and your thoughts and prayers at this time i'm going to turn it over to the metropolitan police chief mr robert conte for the metropolitan police department's portion of this investigation thank you good afternoon i'm robert conte acting chief of the metropolitan police department our members responded to the u.s capitol today just after one o'clock p.m to investigate an officer-involved shooting at this time the metropolitan police department's homicide division as well as our internal affairs division will now take over the investigation with respect to the shooting death that occurred as well as the officer's death there's not a lot of information that we can release to the public at this time but we certainly will be working very closely with our partners at the park police at the u.s capitol police at this time i just want to extend my deepest condolences on behalf of the entire metropolitan police department to all of the officers at the united states capitol police for their service and unfortunately for the loss of life that has occurred that have occurred here today at the united states capitol police are an ongoing threat here on capitol hill or in the neighborhood what can you tell residents that live here as well as folks that work in this area at this time it does not appear to be an ongoing threat uh obviously we're in the very early stages of our investigation uh we need to obviously understand the motivation uh behind this uh senseless act uh so the metropolitan police department will certainly be doing he said that any reason to know that he was known to capital police or mpd beforehand any indication that he was somebody that would have been around the capitol before maybe spotted anything like that it does not appear that he is known to the capitol police or the metropolitan police department at this time sir is this a terrorism related incident it does not appear to be terrorism related but obviously uh we'll continue to investigate to see if there's some type of nexus along those at all what's their mission look like the next couple of days i'll refer that to the united states capitol police chief did the suspect say anything or yell anything at the time i would say that at this time the investigation is still in its preliminary stages so we don't have that information and the capital police as far as its security posture remains in a steady state at this time we are very thankful for our national guard partnership we do have national guard on the campus but the security posture at this time remains the same you said that you said that obviously that vote you're still looking at the motive i understand that any reason to believe that there was any specific target of member was there a specific number of congress that the suspect may have been trying to go after any indication who that may have been we do not have the suspect on file with u.s capitol police so there's no indication at this time that there's any nexus to any member of congress yes ma'am is there alcohol involved we cannot confirm that but the investigation is ongoing the suspect did exit the vehicle with a knife and hand and at that time he started to lunge toward run aggressively toward u.s capitol police office no that part of the investigation is still ongoing the scene is still being processed by metropolitan police department so we will have additional information at a later time in contact i know you mentioned the lunch but the suspect come in contact and wrestle with the police officer there the investigation is ongoing from what we can see from video at this time i do not see the suspect wrestling with a u.s capitol police officer but when he exited the vehicle the knife was clearly in his hand and he did start to run toward the officers so at this time this is all the questions that i am going to take i turn it back over to metropolitan police department's chief again i ask you to please keep the united states capitol police family in your thoughts and prayers at this time it has been an extremely difficult and challenging year for us but um we will get through this and we do appreciate the community's support uh we understand that you guys have a lot of questions obviously there's this is a complex investigation we are going to be putting out more information as we can on social media and if we decide to do any more briefings uh later on we'll of course let you guys know right away thank you can you give us an update can we ask you one more question sure one one question i have looking at the grand fabric of all of this they've uscp has changed their intelligence the way they're sharing it they they've been doing what they can to try to beef up the security here and still they're under attack what is the answer yeah well i think you know just part of our responsibilities and duties as law enforcement officers we're here to protect and serve community clearly this was someone who was actively trying to just get at whoever or whatever we just don't know right now so we have a responsibility to investigate that to get to the bottom of this whether the attack was at law enforcement or whoever we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of it and we'll do that thank you at the scene or at the hospital and you have been listening to capitol police describe the tragic events as they unfolded just a short time ago outside the u.s capitol when a driver rammed into the barrier lunged at two police officers ultimately one capitol police officer did succumb to injuries and so yet again the capitol police has lost one of their own of course on january 6th officer brian sicknick was a captain was attacked when the u.s capital was stormed he passed away and so the capitol police has been in mourning for quite some time and now here yet again this is an investigation that is in its preliminary stages you just heard the capitol police say that it does not appear there is an ongoing threat at this point they are still working to determine if there are any drugs or alcohol involved in this it doesn't appear to be terrorism you heard them say let me turn to our justice correspondent pete williams who has been tracking the developments of all of this since it first unfolded pete what are your takeaways what more can you tell us well first of all for the police to be able to say they don't think it's terrorism they must have a pretty good idea of who this was now we're told that they have traced the car and they know who the car is registered to what they're trying to determine is is is that the person who was driving it today so there's the last we heard there was still a little bit of confusion about exactly the identity of the driver but for the capitol police to say there doesn't appear to be a threat at this point is is instructive and the second point kristen is we're not exactly sure what the injuries were that caused the death of the capitol police officer whether it was being struck by the car the way the police chief described it it did not sound like the driver with the knife actually managed to get to the police officer and and stab the police officer with the knife but we're just not sure about that because some of the earlier information we had is that the officer was stabbed and the cause of the officer's death might turn out to be more the stab wounds than being struck by the car but that's one question that the news conference left unresolved but obviously the big question is who was behind the wheel who is that mine with the knife what what was the motive for that and it's going to be several hours before we know the answer to that and of course there the the the normal investigative thing where you question the driver is not going to happen because he did die in the hospital and it's been of course just shy of two hours since this happened so we're still at the very early stages of this and pete as we've been discussing the capital already has an increased barrier outside of it because of the events that unfolded on january 6 when a mob stormed the capital and again claimed the life of another u.s capital police officer what happens now as you have underscored so well this investigation is in its early stages well remember the security here quote unquote worked that car did not get past that barrier that's what the security was intended to do the police officers who were there to make sure it worked of course one of them has paid the ultimate price but whether that means there should be more security you know that's something that the members of congress are going to have to decide and pete stand by with us as we go to our capitol hill correspondent casey hunt who was there on january 6 when the capitol was stormed has been there for so much of the debate about what if any security perimeter there should be around the u.s capitol and casey as you have reported this is a community this is an area that has frankly been on edge to some extent in the wake of january 6th now some time has passed and then this happens what are your takeaways casey kristen i actually want to focus in on the u.s capitol police specifically because you heard that plea repeated pray for the families pray for the capitol police family and for all of us who are affected by this i can just tell you this news that another officer has passed away is devastating for the capitol hill community it's devastating uh for uh those of us who consider ourselves part of of that community having been there uh for uh as reporters uh in in my case for for many years and there are many others who've been there longer than i have as well these officers have been working around the clock since january 6th they don't have enough manpower so they're putting in overtime hours they're working weekends some of them i i talked to one officer who had gone 20 20-plus days without a day off in the wake of the insurrection because the security posture was so on high so to have something like this happen where yet another of their comrades has fallen and where it seems like such a deliberate attack to have a man get out of a car with a knife and go after an officer really i think just feels like being hit when you're already down and so i think that i'm already hearing from members of congress from staffers uh who are texting or writing to just say that they're heartbroken and so i think that there is a lot of anger a lot of sadness right now about what has happened here now big picture of your right to point out that there has been a lot of discussion also about the security perimeter and had they not moved the security perimeter back a little bit toward the capitol this car would not have been able to reach uh this point that it did although that's not to say that there couldn't have been a similar incident with a police officer at a different checkpoint i mean they have to they have to guard the walls at some place and in this case the incident happened closer to the capitol than it might have but at the end of the day the security did work in this in this incident now the other piece of this is in the past there have been incidents that have nothing to do with politics that occur near or around the capitol uh that simply because of the nature of the city that we live in here in washington uh you can have a a completely random event happen in proximity to power uh there was a woman who drove a car near the capitol and was was killed in an incident a few years ago that i covered it was not related to politics at all obviously because of the climate because of of january 6th it's a completely different situation now and there is this very high alert now the other thing i would i would pick up on as well that we learned in this briefing was that this person was not on the radar of capitol police so capital police have a very specific mission it is to protect members of congress they don't have really any other even the building as you saw during the insurrection is secondary to to the members and so they track every threat that members get so they're following people who perhaps are showing up at offices in their districts who are sending threats who are leaving threatening voicemails it's it's really increased in the wake of january 6th and at the end of the trump presidency people started getting many more threats than had been normal in the past but what they said is that the suspect is not in that database it's not on their radar as someone who has persistently threatened a certain member of congress or members of congress so i thought that was an interesting data point and i'm sure pete and others will have more reporting on this as as this investigation unfolds i think the big question for everyone simply is this was this a politically motivated attack or was it not kristin casey really important point let's head to former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence and nbc national security contributor frank figluci frank pick up on that point that casey raises that's going to be the big question now what are investigators going to be focused on this is a full identification and intelligence investigation at this point who is this person who are they affiliated with if anyone what is a criminal history what is the intelligence history do they appear in any fbi or other law enforcement or intelligence database how did they get here today do they own weapons is there a history of mental health search warrants will be drafted almost as we speak for any residents or place of business that he is associated with so they will grab devices computers phones etc they'll exploit anything in his pockets any devices on him all in an attempt to see why he did this and who he is all right frank fagluci casey hunt pete williams thank you for helping us with this breaking news coverage one u.s capitol police officer has been killed another injured after a car crashed into a barrier we will have full details coming up on nbc nightly news i'm kristen welker in washington good day everyone here i'm aaron gilchrist in new york you're watching breaking news coverage out of washington d.c on nbc news now where we've learned that for the second time this year a united states capitol police officer has been killed in the line of duty a second person a suspect in this case has also died that information coming from the acting police chief of u.s capitol police during a short briefing that they gave a few minutes ago we know at this point that the person who was driving the car you see on your screen here hit two capitol police officers before being shot by a police officer after wielding a knife getting out of the car wielding a knife monica alba is in washington for us she's been following these developments monica can you lay out first what we know about what happened starting at about one o'clock this afternoon yes aaron and really the main headline here is that according to u.s capitol police the threat is over at this time this is no longer an active situation they do believe that that has been contained and we got that horrifically tragic update that one of the capitol police officers who was involved in responding to this attack has died of their injuries we did not get a lot of information even though the reporters at that briefing were trying to ask about what kind of injuries and whether the officer died at the scene or at the hospital or on the way so there is some question marks that linger over that question but we know that the suspect in this vehicle who is also dead according to law enforcement officials got through the barrier in the vehicle this man then exited holding a knife lunged at the officers and very interesting to note here erin this is something that the officials said they have video of of course this is a heavily patrolled area with a big police and law enforcement presence but they also have plenty of security cameras and perhaps other eyewitnesses who have this on video and that they were able to review that and they said that the suspect did lunge with a knife and then the suspect was shot by the responding officers and then ultimately did die from those injuries so the other really important headlines here that now officials can confirm they believe and say this is not terrorism related that this person who this suspect who died was not on file with the u.s capitol police and they don't believe any particular member of congress was targeted with this attack they were asked whether there's any other information about the motive and they said that it is just too soon at this time they were going to be able to give more details but importantly of course this investigation is ongoing and that is what we do know at this point now i can tell you also that president biden is at camp david he is at the presidential retreat in maryland i can confirm he has been briefed on the incident by the aides who traveled with him and the white house is preparing to release a paper statement in the next hour or so so we will bring that to you when we know it aaron but really here i just can't emphasize enough on this good friday as we just get over the 3 pm mark even as those police officials were briefing you could hear church bells toll in the background when they offered that very somber and awful update and really everybody just extending their thoughts and prayers to this fallen u.s capitol police officer and their family there have only been really a handful of capitol police officers who have ever died trying to defend it and of course we know that officer brian sicknick was someone who did die in the line of duty around the january six attacks we don't yet know the identity they haven't given us that information for the officer who lost their life today erin all right monica alba for us in washington right now monica thank you for that it's worth noting that the u.s capitol was not occupied in any significant way in terms of large numbers of people who were working in the building because it is a holiday weekend congress is not in session there were not many staffers if any in the building the capitol or the office buildings that surround it today because of the holiday weekend that we are in i want to bring in nbc news national security analyst frank figluzzi who's been watching some of this unfold as well frank just your initial impressions about what we've learned so far and and what you would uh be able to tell us about what's happening now frankie there well first obviously we've had it yeah i'm i'm here obviously we've had a tragedy with uh with the fatality of a police officer and the subject being killed as well but this could have been even worse had it not been contained at the barricade situation what's happening now is a full-blown investigation and intelligence operation by that i mean everything possible that can be learned about the subject where he came from how he got there why he did this whether or not he's affiliated with any known domestic or international terrorist group whether he has a history of mental illness or has purchased weapons or has explosive histories all of that is being worked on now and even as we speak it's likely that search warrants are being drafted for his residence or place of business so that his devices can be scrubbed and scoured for any reasons and motivations that can be learned about why he did this and whether there's any continuing threat from others who might be associated with him frank as i think about the response to an incident like this uh we know that that the capital complex in that area around it is fairly heavily fortified obviously the police presence that's there that's there the barriers that are both uh always up and only raised when necessary would have would be options things that could be deployed here and used to stop a potential threat but talk a little bit about how uncommon how rare how surprising it is to have an incident like this happen uh uh outside the the capitol and obviously we can't even begin to compare it to what happened on january 6th a much different sort of incident versus what we are seeing here today well i think we're in an era now while it's not unprecedented we're now moving into an era where the capitol building itself the iconic symbol of our democracy that it is is now becoming a target of its own um it's it used to be individual senators members of congress somebody might try to breach security occasionally individual members would get threats but now i think we've we're into a place where the capital itself is a is an iconic threat target of its own and i i have to say i've said on on the nbc network before that any talk about lessening the security post january 6 was premature why because we have a security review that's been done by retired general honore it has very specific recommendations it points out that upwards of 800 more personnel might be needed not only to fill current vacancies at the capitol police but also to create a rapid deployment force that can respond around the capital region that's not been done yet yet we've seen some lessening of the perimeter at the capitol i think that's likely premature you'll see a renewed call now for speeding up the process of enhancing and responding to the security review recommendations all right frank i'll ask you to stand by for a second here nbc news correspondent von hilliard is on capitol hill for us right now i believe uh vaughn are you there yeah i am with you so set the scene for us von what what have you been able to see where are you exactly yeah we're right here on the corner of first and constitution i'm going to kind of give you a little sense of where we are if you swing over here to our right is where actually the u.s capitol is and it's just up this hill this is constitution avenue where the scene of uh the scene of the incident took place here so just one block up that way a scritch or photograph i'm gonna have him zoom in there you can see down the way the flashing lights there to the left of those flashing lights is the russell senate office building every single member of the senate has an office that is off of the actual capital complex and you can see that where that incident took place is actually situated right between those senate office buildings in the u.s capitol you can see obviously behind us here there's an array of uh national guardsmen who have been in washington d.c ever since january 6 the day of the insurrection but what you see here is not what you've seen here in the previous weeks there was an immediate response team that the pentagon has confirmed that they sent out from the national guard to assist with the situation out here over these last two hours there's still 2300 national guard that have been remaining here in this greater dc capital uh complex area here over the course of these last several weeks to help out with the u.s capitol police but actually stood exactly on this very intersection uh back on january 6 now three months ago and it was only a few days after that when uh the remains of capital police officer brian sicknick were brought down in uh a a caravan of police vehicles uh that made their way down these very streets these streets are this winter here have been the quietest of any winter in washington dc uh this is not normally what this capital complex looks like and i got to tell you it was uh just uh just under two weeks ago actually two weekends ago when they took down began taking down that layer of fencing here they restricted folks even up until this point and there was sort of a spring atmosphere in the air when that first layer of fencing began coming down but what you can see from the images of the incident there where that car hit those barriers is that other layer of fencing that is not normally there that fencing went up in the days after january 6. uh you know it was general russell honore who was tasked by speaker nancy pelosi to conduct an overview of what security measures needed to be in place so that an event like january 6 wouldn't happen again or other serious security incidents would serious security incidents wouldn't take place and one of the issues he said is that the government needs to take seriously the threat within of course we still know very little about this individual involved in this situation here but at the same time when you're looking at the incident here what you do see is that a barrier stops that car and now we've learned that two one officer was injured and another officer killed this is a security presence outside of the u.s capitol complex that not only is protecting the members but also their staffs uh the press uh those that work in the capital uh but also this is a place where the public comes to speak to their members of congress uh where they can go up literally walk through the doors of their members offices and ever since january 6 that has not been able to take place and i think what today's event unfortunately showed us number one is that u.s capitol police are playing an ever important role here around this capital perimeter here but also that those conversations that are taking place not only among u.s capitol police but other federal law enforcement agencies and as well as the senate in the house rep house of representatives about what this type of infrastructure needs to be up here long term but those conversations uh remain uh prevalent today and that this was not just a matter of january 6 but this is a matter of uh understanding what security needs to be in place here uh in the long haul vaughn since you're on the ground there i do want to ask you and get some perspective about the layout uh around the capitol right now as we're looking at uh one picture of the dome and a picture of the car that is still on the scene the car that rammed the barricade there a barricade that would have been fairly close to the capitol building itself uh and i'll note for our viewers that the lockdown at the capitol has been lifted in the last few minutes earlier there were instructions for people who may have been in the complex to not to leave or no one for no one to try to enter the complex they were able to move around inside the lockdown lockdown's been lifted now but vaughn you talked about the fencing that was put up post january 6th and the fact that so much of it has come down from from where you are right now uh in comparison to where this car ran into that barrier uh was there fencing there or toward i guess you're south of the the actual capital building south and and west right up until i'm gonna have scritch walk around here with us to try to see if we can get the best angle that we can because it was not until uh saturday two saturdays ago so about 12 days ago cars were still not allowed to drive uh even through this intersection up constitution avenue this entire section over here i'll have scratch pan over here this was all closed off up until now obviously police have put up a perimeter here yet again after today's incident here but no this is generally an open passageway and it wasn't until 12 days ago that they actually opened this area again to the general public into cars and so that very area that you're looking at cars were not able to drive past the u.s supreme court pass those u.s senate and u.s house offices and get even that close to the u.s capitol we should know you see that barrier that the car struck that barrier is always there that is barrier existed before january 6 and i think that's uh important you only see whether it be top leadership of congress or folks from the executive branch or some others that are able to drive down but those barriers generally are always up but that layer of fencing that i know you can see right now in scripture shot but also in the video where the car struck that fencing uh that you're seeing there did not go up until after the events of january 6. we're already having some conversations here as to what uh you know this perimeter looks like here because you saw some members of congress say take all the fencing down and others say that you know throwing out ideas whether it be permanent fencing or general honore again that individual who was tasked by pelosi to look about long-term security changes he suggested retractable fencing uh you know you see from that barrier that was up clearly that layer of barrier was important to keeping that individual from getting any gaining any greater access to the capital complex all right von hilliard on the ground for us in washington outside the u.s capitol right now vaughn thank you for that as we continue to follow this breaking story in washington a u.s capitol police officer has died as a result of injuries sustained when someone rammed the vehicle that you see on your screen here into two capitol police officers and then into the barricade that you see just outside the capitol building itself you may be able to see in the car that the hood of the car is smashed likely as a result of hitting the barrier the windshield of the car is smashed presumably either from when it impacted the barrier or from when it impacted one of the two police officers who were hit by this car before the driver jumped out and was able to engage with officers before being shot by u.s capitol police we can tell you that speaker of the house nancy pelosi has been made aware of the instance incident here and has ordered that flags at the u.s capitol be lowered to half staff obviously in the live picture you're seeing here the flags haven't been lowered yet it will take a few minutes for that to happen but the order has been sent for that to happen as a result of the officer dying in this incident with someone who tried to access the capital building the capitol grounds there with that car and then with a knife we want to turn to uh nbc news senior national security analyst juan zarate who's been watching some of the coverage also a former deputy national security adviser under president george w bush uh juan i i want to get your thoughts we're trying to understand some of the conversations that might be happening when an incident like this unfolds obviously we know the president is at camp david congress is not in session but the security apparatus the national security conversations don't stop because people aren't in washington right absolutely they continue and an incident like this sparks a lot of questions and tension and uh concern around what this incident may represent of course this is seen in the lens of what happened on january 6 the insurrection it's also seen in light of september 11th uh and prior incidents that look a lot like this in the past and so uh national security officials law enforcement uh or are obviously looking at this particular incident but trying to put it in context does it represent something else that's at play and certainly from a counter-terrorism perspective an incident like this would be viewed in the context of who the person may be connected to whether or not this is part of something bigger but the reality the sad reality of a tragedy like this is that it underscores the fact that the the capital is a principle target it is a symbol of american democracy as frank said more and more uh this is becoming a target for individuals maybe like this person and groups and the reality then is that the security profile has to reflect those threats uh and that's what we've seen over the last few weeks it is important to note after 9 11 uh of course the the capital we presumed was the fourth target for the fourth uh airliner um and we knew uh thereafter that the capital was a key symbol and target uh for terrorist groups uh and those seeking to disrupt american democracy uh so this is the concern about the capital isn't new it's the intensity of focus and what january 6 did to ramp up a sense of threat and so the national security establishment the law enforcement community uh reacted quickly you've seen the rapid uh response from the national guard um and certainly there's going to be concern about what this represents in context but um fortunately you see that the lockdown's lifted uh we don't see that there's uh concern about uh other potential attackers all of which officials would be worried about in the normal course of an attack or an incident like this all right juan thank you i want to bring in nbc news law enforcement analyst carmen best a retired the retired seattle police chief uh chief i want to get your perspective on this obviously we're at a point now where there's an investigation that is happening the d.c police department the local police agency there in washington has been brought in to be a part of that investigation what what would law enforcement be looking at at this point uh in in in the on the ground investigation uh if you're if you're part of the the detective team and the forensic team that's that's on a scene like this sure absolutely i just want to start by saying our thoughts and our prayers are with the u.s capitol police and another tragic officer dying in the line of duty just have to start by acknowledging uh and paying remembrances there uh and we in regards to the investigation there'll be both a local and federal response that uh we'll talk about you know they'll be looking at the evidence presented clearly they're going to try to find as much information as they can about the suspect involved we know he's deceased but even with that we want to make sure that we have as much information as possible about his whereabouts prior to being to coming to the capitol you know who he may have been associated with running his name for any criminal history locating and contacting any friends or family that they can getting a clear picture of you know what was going on in the hours days and months prior to this very tragic attack on the capitol to try to find some reason or some purpose why this occurred additionally the police department of course will be looking at preparing for another officer-involved memorial and trying to come to grips with another tragic incident coming on the hills of an awful insurrection and then there'll be a lot of focus on the the uh the safety around the capitol discussions have already been in place and they're going to be intensified about what to do to maintain safety in that area considering these last two really tragic attacks that have happened chief everyone involved with this investigation now is a member of law enforcement even if they're not a member of the u.s capitol police everyone knows that another officer has died as a result of what happened here this day on this day how much does that figure into what's unfolding on the ground right now i don't know if it makes it more difficult for law enforcement or if it is sort of uh energizing in the sense that one of their own has been impacted by by what happened here today well regardless of who the victims were it's a tragic tragic scenario and clearly having one of our own um dying in the line of duty like this only intensifies the sadness of all of this and this is not just felt you know this is going to be felt all across the nation as attacks on officers and as these discussions about safety around capitals increases we don't know again the motive of the suspect whether or not this person was a lone wolf or involved in some sort of coordinated conspiracy but either way we know that we have to have an elevated sense of awareness at the potential risk to everyone in the profession and every and every capital actually in many cases so there'll be those thoughts that are that are going to be um you know circling sort of in the backs of everybody's minds as they progress for forward to collect evidence and bring forward a picture of what happened all right former seattle police chief carmen best we appreciate your perspective on this as we continue to watch live pictures from washington d.c a formidable scene here is we see what we believe to be national guard soldiers and airmen being brought into this area we were told by the national guard a while ago via a statement they put out that they were bringing in airmen and soldiers to reinforce the capitol police resources that were on the ground there around the scene obviously still a very active investigation going on here and very likely that these troops are being brought in to to help secure the scene uh the capital complex is large it is sprawling across an area of uh of of washington d.c sort of between independence right on the end of the national mall the far end of the national mall and so there's an interest in making sure that uh no one gets into that area and can tamper with the scene no one gets out of the area if they need not leave that area while the investigation is ongoing and so that may explain a bit why we see such a large footprint of national guard folks being brought into this area just to make sure they can create a perimeter around the area to to continue with the gathering of evidence uninterrupted again we focused in on this car this blue car that you see uh that is now pressed up against a barrier uh just uh uh uh a few yards possibly from the capitol building itself the the explanation that we got from the acting police chief of the capitol police department was that this car approached this area around the u.s capitol hit two capitol police officers and then slammed into this barricade that is a barricade that is always up that allows cars to access areas closer to the capitol building itself after having gone through the checkpoint the driver of that car then jumped out as we understand it from the police chief and video that she and others have reviewed jumped out of the car with a knife and then either ran at or lunged toward some capitol police officers as she explained it before being shot by law enforcement there on the scene the driver of the car taken to the hospital along with the two police officers who were hit one police officer as we understand it has died and the driver who was in that car the suspect in this incident also has died from his injuries and so that leaves us now with the scene that you see uh the split screen here where law enforcement are on the scene with heavy hearts investigating trying to figure out why this happened uh and then there are all the questions that surround a scene like this around how do you prevent something like this from happening again the speaker of the house has ordered flags at the capitol to be lowered to half staff uh and we've also heard from the senate minority leader expressing uh his sadness at the at the scene that's unfolded here other members of congress saying their their hearts go out to the family of the law enforcement officer who died as well as the law enforcement family itself here at the u.s capitol for a second time this year having to deal with the death of a capitol police officer frank fagluci is with us watching the scene as well frank we are obviously still in the early stages of the investigation of the scene here still a lot of questions that are unanswered just curious about your thoughts about what as we go forward what are some of the sorts of questions that you would anticipate investigators are digging into and we know the fbi has been brought in to help with the investigation here and they have the ability to to start reaching out far beyond washington d.c to look for answers right that's true the fbi will play a very significant role in this investigation at some point don't be surprised if they become the primary investigative agency and that would be a clue that there might be some domestic or international terrorist affiliation that's been discovered but in the interim you're right they are scrubbing all databases checking with not only the us intelligence community but foreign allied intelligence services to see if there's any record of this individual anywhere in any database and then you'll see federal search warrants being drafted for his business his residence his devices there'll be literally hundreds of interviews potentially conducted throughout the united states of relatives co-workers to gain a full picture his history was and then you know you're going to see renewed calls and questions about security at the capitol we have the benefit of a completed security review after january 6 that told us alarmingly that there were a couple of hundred vacancies already in the capitol police force that an additional four to six hundred people would be needed to create a qrf quick reaction force we need to know whether that's truly been done or not i fear it has not yet been done and there is a positive here from a security standpoint which is that this horrible incident tragic as it is happened at a perimeter that barricade worked those officers worked and we have something horrible but it happened outside the capitol not inside the capitol so that's always the issue with security planning whether you're attending a major league baseball game or you're visiting the capitol how far out should your perimeter be and the message though being sent today is twofold to those who would think about threatening the capital one you will likely not succeed you may die in the attempt but two um you can get pretty darn close to the capitol still evil even after the january 6th incident that whole thing needs to be reviewed frank what do you make of the fact that this happened on a holiday weekend the capitol was almost entirely vacant uh as this was unfolding congress not in session and easter is just a couple of days away uh and yet someone would still make this sort of an attempt uh it it sort of boggles the mind they wouldn't have been trying to get to a member of congress it would seem on a day like this well we've already heard from the capitol police spokesperson that this person's name does not appear in their capital police database that's a clue that they don't know this person to have ever threatened a sitting member of congress or or senator or even in the past a member of of the congress so that plus the fact that they're out of session today tells me that this was not designed to harm members of congress but rather it may be the work of a deranged person who simply sees the capital as an iconic target or a high profile target to do something that will make the news time will tell as to what the motivation was all right frank vigloozi thank you sir monica alba uh white house correspondent still on the ground for us there in washington uh monica we've been trying to get a handle on on sort of who's been looped into what's happening at the capitol uh while the the lockdown is over and the scene is now one that is investigative as opposed to responsive to a threat um there are still conversations being had about about what happened here and we're wondering the degree to which the white house and the president have been looped in here uh now that we're an hour and a half since this happened i can tell you aaron that the president has been briefed he is aware of this incident and he is surrounded by a small group of aides including his deputy chief of staff bruce reed who likely brought him up to speed on this as it was happening we know the president took off for camp david in the noon hour he arrived right before 1pm and so in the last couple of hours he's been getting the information as it's been coming in but this is happening at a presidential retreat where there are no reporters the pool that normally accompanies the president does not travel to camp david since it is its own executive retreat and it's equipped with all the security and infrastructure there so we know the white house is preparing to release a paper statement it will likely be in the president's name we don't know yet what it will say given that they are still probably monitoring and assessing the situation perhaps talking to other members and leaders on capitol hill and coordinating a response in that way but we have heard and seen at least some tweets from congressional leadership and speaker nancy pelosi has already asked for the flags to be lowered that's not something that has happened yet at the white house when that does happen it is usually issued by proclamation and that has to be put together and then once that is released and officially ordered by the president then we'll see the flag here at the white house be lowered as well that will likely happen later this afternoon and evening but something else the white house is telling us they've already called a lid for the day which means they don't expect anything to take place on camera in terms of movements or statements as it relates to the president so this is not a situation where they're leaving the door open for the president to come back to the white house and make a statement here otherwise they would have extended that and they wouldn't have called that lid so we don't know what that might mean for the weekend but as we expect it now the president will remain at camp david given it is easter on sunday and he is celebrating that as a family over the next couple of days there in maryland so the other question aaron is what else we may hear from the president or when that might happen and how they may want to get his voice out whether it's just a paper statement he could always record a video there as well that's something that we're waiting to hear also from the white house press secretary who is still here at the white house and working and we'll see what other details we get and bring them to you as soon as we get them monica i am a bit curious though is it is it unusual it's been as i said an hour and a half now and and no word from the white house uh the capital you know right down the street there is it unusual to not to have not heard something uh at this point in time i'm a little bit surprised because sometimes what happens is the president the white house want to wait for officials to do their own briefing before speaking out but that did already happen more than 45 minutes ago we got that briefing where they answered a lot of the main questions as it relates to the suspect and the incident so now that that has all taken place i imagine this is something that is imminent the white house has told us for the last hour or so that they've been working on it so we do expect that to come in the next little bit but something else that's hard to know because we can't see what the president is doing or who he's meeting with is there's also a chance and possibility here that he's making a lot of phone calls behind the scenes that he's trying to talk to people who may have been involved or he's trying to get in touch with the leadership at capitol police also and so all of those different things sometimes take a lot of time and the white house isn't giving us any kind of readout of exactly how the president is spending these few hours at camp david all we know is that he's been briefed he has been briefed and a statement is coming soon but it is kind of notable and unusual aaron because camp david is i think the only place where the president goes where he's not accompanied by a pool of journalists who at any moment could be scrambled and assembled so that he could either go answer questions on camera or field questions so the fact that that's not really an option given where he is right now means they will likely default to this paper statement and the fact that we have a lid means we shouldn't expect to hear from the president on camera at least today uh monica i i know that we've you mentioned it we've heard some from some members of congress uh obviously we've noted that congress is not in session and they're uh spread out back at home for the holiday weekend uh but what have you heard to this point uh as far as you know comments about what happened at the capitol from any members of congress i know statements have been slowly coming in yeah now we've actually seen probably dozens of lawmakers issue their thoughts and prayers really to this u.s capitol police officer who died in the line of duty and to that person's family in fact one of the first people who confirmed that the officer had died was congressman tim ryan of ohio he tweeted out that he had been briefed on the security incident and mentioned that this officer tragically passed away that was one of the first official fonts of information that confirmed that had taken place we're also hearing from people like minority leader mitch mcconnell we're hearing from kevin mccarthy on the house leadership side and then speaker nancy pelosi who again we should point out all of these people were not physically at the capitol when this happened and we know also from law enforcement officials who gave that briefing they don't believe that any specific member of congress was targeted in this attack and they said that this suspect who died was not even on file with the u.s capitol police so this wasn't somebody who was known to them and there doesn't appear to be any motive they say at this time that specifically ties this individual with any of the 500 plus lawmakers on capitol hill who again as you point out aaron were not there today but who will be back when the session convenes again on monday and i think you can expect a lot of debate about what happens now in terms of the security presence if this was a one-off if it's not connected to the january 6 attacks which we simply don't know it's too soon to say there may be more calls to restrict the perimeter fencing in fact some lawmakers have said that they believe this inner fencing should also be removed and it should go back to the way it was before the january 6th attack whereas of course you have others who are very concerned who say that fencing is critical because it helps stop things like this and obviously today what's so important to note here is that the capitol police officers did everything they were supposed to do those barricades did the job they were supposed to do and this situation of course there's a lot that's still unknown but what's so horrific is that it was stopped well before that person would ever have been able to even get close to the capitol in fact two barriers away from it but a lot of questions remain about the security posture going forward aaron all right monica alba for us uh near the white house and i'll point out since it's loud enough for us to hear it monica there's uh you're near the white house and there's always activity not necessarily or not at all i would imagine connected to what's happening at the capitol so monica thank you i do want to note uh as we've now seen a written statement from capitol police just a a few details here that we hadn't received earlier in this case that one of those officers who was hit by the car by the blue car you see here was driven to the hospital in a police cruiser so an indication that that officer at least was heard badly enough that waiting for an ambulance to arrive on the scene there was not an option that some other officers there thought was prudent and so the officer was taken by car uh to the hospital in at least one of the instances here leanne caldwell is our capitol hill correspondent who is also joining us now i believe at the scene liam what can you add for us martha hello again hey aaron so that's right where i am i'm just going to set the scene a little bit so right behind me is constitution avenue you see an ambulance still the ambulance right behind the ambulance is actually the entrance to the capitol and that is where the car turned in struck two capital police officers and then ran in to that barrier you could still see i'm not sure if our camera can see it but there's still you could still see the car there um with the with the trunk hood open um and so you know we have heard some extremely extremely tragic news today when u.s capitol police chief pittman came to give the press conference we thought that she was going to give an update we did not expect that the news was going to be that one of the officers succumbed to his or her injuries it seems like they were struck the two officers were struck by the car and one of the officers has died because of that it is just an extremely tragic day once again for the capitol police officers you know just backing up earlier in the day i was in the russell senate office building which is right next to me um i think that you know rudy the camera guy is going to try to get a little bit of it and that is where a lot of rapport we do our live shots from from the russell rotunda that's where our senators have their offices that's where staff sit in their offices as well and this entrance to the capitol where the car crashed into is where members drive through on a daily basis staff members walk through on foot on a daily basis and those barricades that white car barricade that it crashed into those were barricades that were put up after one of the last big security threats not january 6 of course but september 11th so every time there is an increased threat to the capital to washington to our seats of government um there is more and more security that is put up things like this these metal posts here those were all put up after september september 11th as well and so this is really going to change once again the conversation that is current was currently underway after january 6 about what security is going to look like that was a conversation that had become actually quite political in the last several weeks as there was lots of discussions people wanted this black fence behind me taken down the outer perimeter black fence f that was put up after january 6 was taken down so just in the past couple weeks were cars allowed to drive on constitution avenue for the first time since january 6 and that is why that driver was able to pull very close into the capital and strike to police officers speaker pelosi has starting to ready a two billion dollar supplemental security package to try to come up with some sort of security plan moving forward that is a debate that has been underway after january 6 and this is most likely going to once again change that conversation because as the capital which has been the known as the people's house as many tourists many people usually spent in pre-coveted times anyway would walk these halls come into the capital give have tours it was a very open place that where reporters lawmakers aides and tourists all meshed in the same rooms in the same hallways in this very very you know gorgeous building behind me but once again we lost there's the loss of the capitol police officer today was another another horrible day after they have been through so much in the past couple months aaron lian caldwell uh for us outside the u.s capitol leanne i'm going to ask you to stand by for us for a second i have more questions for you but we do need to pause here for a moment as we are covering this story the lockdown lifted at the u.s capitol after an incident in which a capitol police officer was killed a suspect was killed as well our coverage continues after a short [Music] break [Music] she planned for the end of the world death followed in her wake and her children went missing mommy doomsday the dateline podcast it has to be heard to 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the car has also died we understand at this point leanne caldwell our capital hill correspondent is on the ground for us with some new information liam what can you tell us hey aaron that's right there is some breaking news and they have now identified the person the suspect who crashed their car into the capitol our colleagues pete williams tom winter and jonathan dines say that law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation say the person is noah green is his name and he is a 25 year old male from indiana of course we also know that he was killed today after he crashed his car into that metal car barrier he got out wielding a knife and the chief police capital police chief pittman said that he had lunged toward officers and that is when shots were fired and that is how he was killed so the the suspect has now been identified as a 25 year old from indiana and so that is some very new news that we have in this this horrible horrible situation aaron leanne i do want to ask you to back up for us i know that you've been there at the capitol for most at the capitol complex anyway for most of the day today uh and this for us started with your notice that there had been a notice sent out to folks who are normally in the building there set the scene for us from one o'clock-ish this afternoon from where you were in the capital complex that's right erin i was here today and actually at about 12 50 i had walked past this very exact spot um to get to our camera location in the russell rotunda and um i was actually going on television with our colleague on our sister network msnbc with chuck todd on his show and right before it was about 103 there was a announcement through the loudspeakers for all staff and all people who are in the office that they are on lockdown because of an exterior situation that they were not naming shortly after we heard the sirens come you know after i got on off of television when i was talking about an infrastructure bill went to the windows where we could see um all of the the first responders presence up and down constitution avenue behind me a helicopter came and landed on the east front of the capitol there's a green lawn there that separates the capital from the supreme court and the library of congress to give our viewers a little bit of understanding of where we are a helicopter landed there and so this all happened around 103 105 pm um and it was very quick uh and so this is the remnants of what happened you know we've been getting more and more details since then now that we know that a capitol police officer has died today house speaker nancy pelosi has ordered the flags at the capitol to be lowered to half staff in honor of him but i want to also say that things have been so much different around here as far as security is concerned after january 6 and that is one of the reasons why this is also so heightened of course the loss of life is critical at any moment but this comes on the heels of a very horrible day this insurrection on january 6 where a police officer capital police officer brian sicknick had died where two police officers after that had taken their lives because of it and the capitol police have been working have just had such a tough time they have been working so hard so many long hours to keep up with the security demands i talked to capitol police a lot coming in and out of the building you know i've gotten to know some of them and right after january 6 they were working 18-hour days 16 6 days a week that has slowly been decreased but they're still on 12-hour shifts six days a week they hardly get any time off there's just so many demands on them physically to be here for their job and they are also simultaneously having to process what happened to them on january 6th something that many of them have struggled to do and haven't had time to do is they don't get a lot of time away from here it's been the morale has been extremely low um there was a report out uh by retired lieutenant general honore that speaker pelosi had commissioned that said that they had worked tens of thousands of hours of overtime uh capitol police in the past year um because they have been understaffed and under prepared so this is just it's just such an a a very very difficult day i can't even underscore how hard this is for this police force who has just been through so much this year aaron leanne caldwell for us uh land thank you i i do want to i think we still have frank faglusi with us msnbc nbc news national security analyst who's been watching this story unfold with us frank i'll note that sources have told nbc news through pete williams that the driver has been identified as 25-year-old noah greene of indiana and that he may have some ties to that region around washington dc maryland virginia obviously noah greene of indiana doesn't do a whole lot for regular folks trying to do a google search but that level even that little bit of information for the fbi which would have a key role in figuring out who this guy is and what he's about i would imagine even such a common name and that little bit of information would be the key to open a lot about who this person is oh yeah that's more than enough to trigger a significant investigative response even as we speak i am certain from my past experience that there are fbi vehicles at least sitting outside the home or suspected home of noah greene of indiana it's enough for them to start drafting search warrants for various residents that he might be associated with and it's clearly enough to start running that name through all databases of all kinds not only law enforcement but u.s intelligence and even foreign intelligence allies who will run the name for us and see if he's in their system or has ever come up before in any capacity they'll be looking at past employment um whether or not he's in a system for example the national instant check system that's used when you check someone for purchasing a weapon because that system also includes certain adjudicated mental health issues that might preclude someone from getting a gun all of that as we speak is being checked right now all right frank thank you for that i think we still have monica alba with us as well monica i do want to check back one more time i know we've been waiting to to hear something from the white house you've been keeping an eye on that as we've already heard from obviously the capitol police chief we have you see in the video there the d.c metropolitan police department's chief who spoke a little bit earlier during this news conference and we've heard from via statements and via twitter and such certain members of congress monica anything new to add from the white house perspective not yet aaron and my eyes are really glued to my phone in terms of monitoring for any email or tweets and i think something to consider here is that it is good friday on an easter weekend and the president is a very devout catholic it's possible that given his experience in the last few years on something like the somber moment of 3 pm on good friday for any practicing catholic he may have been in some services or there we know there is a chapel at camp david so i'm speculating um there may have been other things that also he was doing that are important to him and his faith and that is one possible explanation for why we haven't gotten a statement yet but that really speaks to also the overall situation which we can remind people the president left the white house about four hours ago now he left in the noon hour to go to camp david for easter weekend and then this incident on capitol hill actually happened right around 1 pm and so by then at that point the president was already at camp david where there aren't any reporters or cameras with him but where he is surrounded by a small group of aides so we know the white house press secretary jensachi has said he's been briefed he's monitoring everything that has occurred and then they're going to release a paper statement they said but the fact that we don't have that yet just means they're still working on it or the president is otherwise occupied or making phone calls it could be a whole combination of everything that i just mentioned but it is a notable delay given we've heard from almost every other major leader of course on capitol hill at this point but it's possible the president is waiting for even more information and again the one thing that is likely i think we would expect to see this afternoon is a white house proclamation that will ask the flags here on the complex to be lowered which hasn't been issued yet but that's something else that has to be drafted and put together which we've seen in the wake of other tragedies and shootings just in the last couple of weeks aaron but this is something where we know the president is engaged he's learning information behind the scenes and they're now just making the decisions about the next steps and how to communicate that to the american people but we do know that the president isn't expected to make any statements on camera since he is at camp david at least for today and we expect he will actually be there through the easter weekend returning to the white house sometime on monday erin all right monica alba for us in washington uh near her post uh at the white house uh um monica i i i as we've been looking at this scene uh unfold and we're still looking at live pictures here obviously of the car that police have been investigating the car that rammed the barricade there and on the other side of the screen we see national guard soldiers that are still in position this is this is a section of washington the federal area in washington d.c this is an area that has still been a bit tense as a result of what happened happened there on january 6th and so this sort of posture you might expect at a time like this you might expect it to linger even though we've been told the lockdown is over the threat has been uh contained it no longer exists in this area but it's this sort of this picture sort of speaks to the feeling in the federal district of washington over the last few months now absolutely erin you know it so well from living here and covering washington and capitol hill is actually my backyard i live in a neighborhood not too far from there you're used to now really engaging with national guardsmen who you see on your daily walks and this is something where actually in the last week or so so many people were breathing a sigh of relief because the outer perimeter fencing had been brought down and was taken down and removed in a signal the community thought that things were looking up that after the weeks following january 6 they could be in a posture where things could be slightly more relaxed even though of course we know all these other security protocols are in place so the fact that you now have this incident today and again there's so much we don't know and we really have no clue whether this is connected to january 6th but the security posture is we can't overstate that enough the fact that there are so many people and law enforcement responded as quickly as they did is very much uh estimation and really testament to what happened a couple of months ago and that's something i think we can expect to continue though there's debate about what kind of fencing should be made permanent we know there's of course high non-scalable fence around the white house and that's something that is going to be in place but even has they've been making changes to it over the last few years in response to other security incidents so does something like today make the case for something more permanent on capitol hill that remains to be seen and that's a major debate that's going to play out politically among lawmakers we can expect some of whom have very strong opinions about what should and shouldn't happen but the other outstanding thing aaron as it relates to the president is he's supposed to give a joint address to congress that's something typically that presidents do about a month after they're sworn in that wasn't the case this year for two reasons the first is that the president has said really his number one priority was getting coveted relief passed and the second is because of the coronavirus pandemic they're not quite sure about the logistics of gathering more than 500 lawmakers in one room indoors and the safety and health of that because as we know from our own reporting not all members of congress have been vaccinated yet and they're not fully protected even some who've just gotten it in the last few weeks and months so they're not really sure that it's a good idea to do it and then on top of that now you add this security question in fact we know also from our own reporting that some of that fencing had remained in place until they knew what date that joint address to congress was going to be and then the thinking was after that joint session and that big high-profile event with the president traveling to the hill giving that speech then after that perhaps then they could remove some of that fencing that's something that's still up in the air and given the events of today it's possible that we could see them either call for more fencing or to extend the timing but altogether aaron this joint address to congress could also now really take a different form or be a different speech given the events of this afternoon and the tragic news of the death of that capitol police officer all right monica alba forest in washington monica thank you very much for your reporting as we've gone through this afternoon again live look here at washington near capitol near the u.s capitol where a car now still sits at a barrier after having tried to breach it to reach the capital hitting two police officers in the process killing one of them the driver dead as well after this incident i'm aaron gilchrist you're watching nbc news now thank you so much for joining us i'm morgan radford we begin with breaking news out of d.c a suspect rammed a car into a capitol hill barricade and the driver has died from his injuries after being shot by capitol police one of those officers was struck by the suspect's car and he died another officer is injured and here's what police said about the incident this afternoon the suspect rammed his car into two of our officers and then hit the north barricade barrier at such time the suspect exited the vehicle with a knife in hand our officers then engaged that suspect he did not respond to verbal commands the suspect did start lunging toward u.s capitol police officers that's what at which time u.s capitol police officers fired upon the suspect let's bring in nbc news capitol hill correspondent leanne caldwell leanne set the scene for us what is it like on the hill right now i know that you've been there all day tell us what's happening yeah morgan first i'll start with the immediate where i am right now um right behind me is constitution avenue and then you could see the ambulance behind me and right behind that is the entrance to the capitol and that is where the car turned in hit two officers and crashed into that white metal barrier that we've been seeing on tv throughout the day [Music] this is streets that have previously been closed after january 6. constitution avenue main thoroughfare in washington uh was inside a outer perimeter put up of security after january 6 it was just taken down about two weeks ago and so this is new again that people could drive on this street and that is why this car was able to access the entrance of the capitol and so close to the capitol now remember previous to january 6 this had always been open um so but the security posture has changed of course we heard the tragic news of the death of the capitol police officer it seems like one of the um who succumbed to injuries chief pittman had said you know i was in the russell i'm sorry i was i'm in the there's this i'm gonna stop right here because there's a tow truck that is coming and it says it's a dc metropolitan police tow truck and so i'm going to speculate right now and assume that that tow truck is perhaps coming to get the car that is crashed the suspect's car that has crashed uh we'll keep we'll keep an eye on that but i was i was here early in the day when this happened i was in the wrestle senate office building which is just about 50 100 feet yards from me right now which is where us reporters we do our tv our live shots it overlooks the capitol it's very close to the capitals where senators and their staff have office buildings and i there was an extern there was a intercom that came out said that everything was locked down you could not leave or come in the building because there was an exterior threat and of course that exterior threat is what happened today so it has been another horrible tragic day up here on capitol hill just you know weeks and a couple months after what happened on january 6th so people were already on edge people were already unsure of of their safety when they come to work the building though is not a lot of people here because congress is on recess of course it's good friday today they're on their easter recess this week and even next week so lawmakers aren't here most staff aren't here either so it's relatively very quiet good friday up here on capitol hill where i thought that it was going to be a very quiet and perhaps a short day but the events obviously had something completely different is how the day turned out rightly and i want to go back to something you spoke about just a moment ago when you drew the comparison to january 6 and you talked about some of the changing law enforcement presence there we know that agencies like the atf were there today how unusual is it for those other agencies to be present at a time like this yeah well when there's an emergency is when they come but when there's not an emergency it's usually just the capitol police but after january 6 of course the national guard has been here ever since the numbers of national guard troops have decreased dramatically from their height of 25 000 national guard here during the inauguration which of course was january 20th after january 6. those numbers have been decreasing and that they're at the lowest level now than they have been since january 6. they won't give us exact numbers but we can estimating around a few hundred maybe low thousand is how many national guard are still here the the capitol police's main backup main reinforcement in addition to the national guard is the dc metropolitan police and they of course had a very big presence when they were called on january 6 and then today here as well they were also called here today so this is this is this is a place where of course security is very very important but it's also a place that has been very open to the public we're in peak tourist season right now of course tourism isn't very high because of covid but i've been noticing this week that it's spring break week for a lot of people i've seen more tourists in dc than i have and since covet started since last march and so i was starting to think the city is coming back you know there's people who are starting to travel again the cherry blossoms are in peak bloom right now usually the capital in this week is packed with people packed with taurus but it's not because of covid and it's not because of january 6. so the current events have really um you know played a huge role in what and who was here today definitely but it's just the start of this conversation over security that began after january 6 that this incident today is likely once again to probably shift and influence what security is going to look like after this morgan an incredible series of events and leanne i know you were there earlier in january when things were changing and unfolding so first of all stay safe and thank you for being there and bringing us the latest news that's our very own leanne caldwell there for us today right now i want to bring in nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter who joins me now tom this has been just an incredible two days for you and your reporting we know the suspect has been identified so what else can you tell us what do we know about the investigation so far so right now morgan is you might suspect law enforcement officials are pouring over the social media account of this individual identified as noah green 25 years of age originally from indiana but to spend most of his recent time in the virginia area i'm going to read to you a post that he made on facebook in the last several weeks he said peace friends family enemies and the like i wanted to give everyone an update as promised to be honest these past few years have been tough and these past few months have been tougher i have been tried with some of the biggest unimaginable tests in my life i'm currently now unemployed after i left my job partly due to afflictions but ultimately in search of a spiritual journey i haven't had much to lean on the past few months i've been faced with fear hunger loss of wealth and diminution of fruit my faith is the only thing excuse me my faith is one of the only things that has been able to carry me through these times and my faith is centered on the belief of the honorable minister louis farrakhan as jesus the messiah the final divine reminder in our midst he continues on speaking about farrakhan and other religious type themes as well as discussing some of the hardships that he's had morgan i think when we look at this individual he's obviously gone through a very difficult period as many people in this country have over the past year though most people have obviously not driven into a capital barricade and then went after officers with a knife is has been explained to us by police officials so at this point this person is deceased noah green is deceased you're seeing the vehicle that is registered to him and police officers shot him once he according to police lunged at them with a knife after crashing into this barricade at least one u.s capitol police officer is dead and several others have been injured and so that's where this case stands at this point with him being deceased there obviously will not be a trial so we'll wait and see what other information we can get because there is not a trial interestingly we typically get a lot more information because law enforcement is not hesitant to try to have a prejudicial proceeding ahead of it if if if they were to proceed to a trial so we should get more information it should be forthcoming uh and obviously they'll be pouring through his social media accounts um but but that's just a synopsis of some of the things that he's posted recently which is interesting tom because that's sort of the only glimpse that we have into his mindset and you know you've covered so many of these stories when we talk back look back to san bernardino or pulse or this it's almost like these manifestos are the only bit of information we have before these tragedies happen but we also pay so much attention to the suspects what about the victims we know that one capital police officer has died another was injured what do we know about those officers this heroic capital police department that has been under so much just in the past almost three months what do we know about them well right now morgan and i appreciate your point we don't yet know the names of those officers and there's a good reason for that they still want to make sure that all the family members that need to be notified are notified we know at least one u.s capitol police officer died as a result of their injuries that they sustained in this incident the exact manner that they died is something we're still trying to get some more information on some conflicting reports whether or not they were struck by the vehicle or in fact they had been stabbed at some point by the individual noah green so that's something that we're still trying to work out another officer was injured perhaps a third so we're still trying to get that information and get some of the specifics but right now the capitol police understandably don't want to put that information out until they make sure all the family members have been notified fortunately it ends there um you brought up a series of attacks where a number of civilians and bystanders were injured um so the good news so far at least is that there doesn't appear that there's been anybody else who has been harmed as a result of this crime so far but obviously we'll continue to report and tom just before i let you go i know this is extremely early and certainly a fluid situation as it's breaking news but you know we got a glimpse as you mentioned in reading that facebook post from his mindset but do we have any sense of why he went there any sense of the motive in terms of place location and timing right so what i read to you gives us a sense of mindset the question you're asking the appropriate question you're asking is motive so what got us from a point of of perhaps some personal struggles to getting into a car and trying to ram it into the capitol and then coming out of the car with a knife that's obviously a very deliberative action we don't have that information yet that's something that's going to require additional interviews obviously they're going to want to speak with his family they're going to want to speak to his friends they're going to want to speak with people that knew him over the past several days somehow if he's been using credit cards track where he's made purchases uh were there recent purchases that were made that could uh have uh could provide some insight as far as what he was thinking and why this happened today perhaps perhaps not those are all the types of things that they'll look into they'll obviously be able if they haven't done it already they'll do it very shortly have the correct warrant uh exigent circumstance type warrants to go after his cell phone records who's he been calling who's he been talking to and that can also provide some information as far as where he's actually physically been over the past several days and weeks and text message records and other records go back several months so they'll be able to piece that together that's not as we sit here in the east coast at 4 16 on friday gonna be something that's done in the next few minutes but something over the next few days all right tom winter no one gives us quite the insight and details like you so thank you so much for making time for us this afternoon let's go ahead and bring in jim cavanaugh right now he's a retired atf special agent and nbc news terrorism analyst jim you and i have talked over a series of similar events and yet this one is no less shocking the capitol police says this does not appear to be terrorism related but what are investigators going to look at when they're trying to determine the motive that tom was just describing i think morgan you have a big overlay here of suicide homicide and suicide which he killed the capitol police officer he attacked the capitol police so it was homicidal but it's also suicidal the facebook post shows us the despondency uh you know he's lost he has no food he's been going hungry he has no work he has no future it sounds like he has nobody no but he's supporting him he's just totally out there and what does he do he launches an attack you know on a the visible place of the united states democracy so maybe maybe i'm not saying for sure i mean we'll have to see what the investigators find out one possibility that he's launched that attack right there at the seated democracy because it failed him it failed him in his life he has nothing and he's not blaming necessarily his mother or father or friends or relatives but he's blaming you know the nation and you know we are the suicide rate in this pandemic is awful and you know a lot of americans can have been touched by the suicide uh suicides in america based on the pandemic uh it's so depressing it's so isolating it's so debilitating financially that the future looks bleak uh you know the news is so down and you know you get people in a depression and then they take their own life and i think there's there's some elements of that here i mean it doesn't seem to be to me morgan that he went to any great effort to try to acquire firearms or explosives to lost any kind of a planned you know mission to do something sounds like he got in his car with a knife and he drove over there so the planning is not very very extensive in my view and i i think it's an overlay of uh suicide in this uh and he wanted the cops to kill him and uh he's he's angry he's angry he's angry at the po he's angry at everyone he's angry at everyone so who do you launch your attack at well the nation he lives right there he's living in virginia there's the symbol that's who i'm going after they're going to kill me that's it and how incredibly unfortunate because i think some of the things that you're talking about jim i mean we've seen this pandemic and of course you know suicide rates have gone up depression rates have gone up especially among children we've seen the opioid addiction and epidemic increase which is the other unspoken piece of this pandemic so certainly people are being affected but this is this is tragic i mean this is this is murderous right i mean this is a situation that has caused people to die so when you look for example about how law enforcement is reacting to this and the fact that they did lift the lockdown for example what does that tell you about next steps why did they decide to remove the lockdown does that say that there's no more threat left yes morgan exactly i think well they have the facebook post they uh they they they know his behavior which we've described the driving to vehicle attack and the officers uh they don't see any other means of a violent uh major attack they've got the facebook post probably indicating a suicidal angle to it and so they feel that yes they can lift the lockdown i think that's probably the right assessment too uh you know they have to make those judgments all the time it's the heroic capitol police and you know also our facilities police uh our university police uh our police at uh you know bridges and tunnels people say oh you know those policemen you know they've got it made they're just at the facility you know the some of those officers get in the most dangerous situations right in a modern era in the last 30 years you know it used to be only the city police you know that were involved in all the violence and crime and the bank robberies but it's not like that anymore our facilities police across the country university police police at hospitals police and federal buildings they sometimes are involved in just unbelievable actions of violence and the capitol police is both of those it's both the city police for the 40 blocks around the capital and it protects the members so it has a secret service type element and it protects the capital grounds so it has these major missions and it has to deal with all of them so what the congress needs to do is quit the debating which they supposed to be good at but not really and a lot of talk and support the capitol please give them more officers give them more equipment give them some security it doesn't need to be a fortress i totally agree with that i want to jump in there jim when you're talking about this debate that's happening in congress because there's also been some debate about taking down the fencing around the capitol and sending those national guard troops home they've been there of course since january 6. do you think that is the right move does that somehow change the equation no that's that's the right move uh we don't need that fence around the capital we don't need all those national guardsmen standing there that's not the right move that's fighting the last war which is the january 6 insurrection which is not going to happen again without a whole lot of notice that took a president who was telling the big lie who was egging them on who was directing them all of his supporters members that were speaking out like this this crazy talk that build up over months you're going to see that coming you don't need all that that's just going to make it worse so that that's not what we need what we need is capital police to be fully staffed and maybe more staffing because they got to protect the members of far as well smart technology which we have that can help us you know keep crowds away and keep people back and you know do the smart things that keep the capital open but more people protected listen to the law enforcement and get that capital police board with the two sergeants at arms and the architect of the capitol trying to oversee the chief that's no good that's not going to work you know it doesn't work in an emergency so you got to change that structure you know you got to have the right leadership in there they can do all that morgan but they need to do it they need to make the positive steps i want to ask you we have to go to break in just a minute but just very briefly i i can't let you go without asking a lot of us when we saw what happened on january 6 wondered was this the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end because we've been seeing this rise in extremism across the nation and these extreme acts right do you think that what we saw on january 6 and now more recently what we saw today is part of a larger pattern that we will have to expect to see more of yes it is more the beginning of the problem but the problem will be different it's not going to be an insurrection at the capitol house it's going to be more it'll be more you know lone wolf style attacks uh in the year ahead uh you know what's damped that down i think is the fbi's aggressive posture and the u.s attorney's office going out and arrested 300 400 of these false patriots they've gone out and got them they've put them in jail the federal judiciary has been excellent they've not given them bond if they're violent if they've been you know known to go out and commit violence the judges have a tough role and they've been doing a great job and they these people need a fair trial but if they're convicted of these violence against the united states government insurrection inciting insurrection they need to go to prison that is the thing that will damp it down the best but we're in a year now where that's not pictures not quite clear uh i'm surprised we haven't seen some barricades against the fbi trying to arrest some of these people some shootouts some fugitives and that may still yet come from some of the insurrectionists that they're trying to get but uh i wouldn't be surprised that we see a bombing or two uh we saw the two pipe bombs on capitol hill those arrests have not been made yet so it's morphed morgan it's a different threat a different type of threat actors different tactical threat the same actors so it's going to be a little more amorphous a little more across the country you know danger to the members threats to the members and all political leaders i think that's really out there and it's not going away and it certainly has people on high alert uh jim i i can't thank you enough for your perspective it's what we needed to hear today jim cavanaugh thank you so much for being with us and stay tuned right here to nbc news now

Channel: NBC News

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Keywords: nbc, news, news nbc, nbc live, live news, news nbc live, nbc news live, nbc special report, nbc news today, news today, nightly news, nightly news nbc, nbc news special report, nbc news live today, nbc news live stream, nbc news now

Id: Qe28ljvN7V4

Length: 165min 39sec (9939 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021