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Houston 19, Us 14, Texas 11, America 9, Chicago 8, Clint 7, Jennifer 6, Lyrica 5, Fbi 4, Clint Van Zant 4, United States 4, Msnbc 3, Sandy 3, Virginia Tech 3, Lockdown 2, S.e. 2, New York 2, Ben Taub 2, Janet Shamlian 1, George Bush 1,
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    January 22, 2013
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about 20 miles outside of houston, texas, evacuation in progress after at least four individuals injured during a shooting on the campus. witnesses say two individuals got in to an argument, escalated to gun fire exchanged. police looking for one suspect, one in custody. one of the victims in critical condition. that is according to the information we have received. we'll continue to follow the breaking news out of houston, texas, and bring you the latest developments as they come in to the msnbc newsroom. i'm passing it to colleagues with "the cycle." thanks, tamron. we continue to follow the breaking news this afternoon on msnbc. at least three people have been shot at lone star college outside of houston. one suspected shooter who's a student there is in custody. police are now searching for a possible second shooter and also told the fbi and atf responding
to the scene to assist with the investigation. janet shamlian joins us on the phone from houston. what is the latest? >> hello, s.e. sounds like an altercation that turned in to gun fire between two individuals. the scene we have is three people are shot. we may have a fourth person who was the victim of a heart attack. we have one person in custody. there is a lot of talk about another shooter. there's a search actively at this point for another shooter that's unconfirmed at this point. but this campus of some 18,000 students is sprawling. it is surrounded by a wooded area that leads in to a neighborhood. and right now, harris county constables aided by a number of law enforcement agencies are fanned out throughout that wooded area. looking for potentially another gunman. students have been told to shelter in place. many have already fled the campus but we're to believe many
18,000. is that just at this one school or does that refer to all of the lone star college campuses near houston? >> frankly, i'm not that familiar with it. it's not a school like the university of houston or rice university. however, if you're looking at the aerials, it is a sprawling campus sizewise and understanding that 18,000 students are spread out under a number of campuses. i don't know if that's the same location. there is more of a community college, technical school. >> janet, let me ask you one more question before we let you go. we keep hearing perhaps this is gang related. what evidence do we have or what leads us to keep saying that? >> it's just reports from the scene that we're getting in to our newsroom there in new york. it is unconfirmed at this point. any gang activity or whether the two individuals if there were, in fact, the shooters even knew
each other. >> all right. okay. janet, thank you very much. joining us on the phone, former fbi profiler, clint van zant. we have seen so many shootings like this. seems different than the ones before we have talked about before. but, you know, once again, gun violence focusing america on one college campus. >> well, realize that this is the fourth incident of gun violence of shootings that have taken place on college campuses since january 1st. and in a recent year, there were almost 1,500 incidents of firearms related violence on college campuses of america. so, this is unfortunately something that seems we're seeing more and more of these and you put that in connection with a recent report where at least 25% of college campuses all across america said, we are not prepared to deal with the situation just like we're looking at right now.
25% of the colleges in this country say, we're not ready or prepared to deal with an active shooter situation. this is something unfortunately that's -- that we're seeing more and more and that colleges are going to have to prepare to deal with. >> and clint, have colleges learned anything in the wake of the terrible tragedy that we saw at virginia tech? >> well, they haven't. i think that's a very good question. we have seen some of the lessons learned that are being practiced already today. number one, of course, colleges can instantly put out a message to their students, to faculty, staff via e-mail, twitter, things like that. advise people. there's an active shooter on campus. they can say shelter in place, which we know from virginia tech, i was at virginia tech for a week right after the shooting. and that there were many classrooms where you could not lock the door from the inside. students couldn't exclude someone from coming in a classroom so in a situation like
this, even though we're told this is an altercation between two people on campus, at least the students and faculty would have the ability to lock themselves in a classroom until law enforcement came and said it was safe to come out. >> a college campus talking about thousands of people and many, many acres and many different buildings and that sort of space becomes really, really difficult to protect because it's so large. a smaller school like a sandy hook, it's smaller, it's easier to lock down. this sort of situation, there's so much space to be covered. >> well, and i think that's the challenges on any college campus. it's not like a grade school where you have one door in and one door out and you can buzz people through a door. here you have thousands of students and faculty members and guests that can come in and out and a number of different ways, number of different vehicles.
texas has a right to carry law. you can carry a concealed weapon even though you can't carry it on campus but let me ask you this. let's say the college had 10,000, 15,000 people on campus today. how do you screen 15,000 people for the presence of a firearm? >> right. >> we can do that at an airport. we can do it at a federal building in washington, d.c. as we have people come in but on a college campus almost impossible to do and one wanders how many people carry legally or otherwise a concealed weapon on college campus. realize my statistic in recent year, almost 1,500 incidents of firearm-related violence on college campuses of america. >> a secondary worry about sort of militarizing a campus, wanting to check every person coming in to a building rather than an airport and expect that. it's commerce. you can choose to fly or not
fly. >> sure. >> there's extra problems patting down or going tlau metal detector to go in to a school. >> you think of yourself, you know, a college campus. you have a backpack. it is getting to be colder. you have a heavy coat on. are you going to put a metal detector on every building? say you have 50, 75 buildings on campus. you have to have people to man the metal detectors and then somebody to do a search if something comes up like a cell phone going through. it's an almost unmanageable task where we have to rely on the goodwill of people not to act out just like we have seen today. >> all right. clint, thank you for that. we bring in sheila jackson lee, a democratic member of congress representing the district where this happened. have you been in touch with local authorities and what are you hearing from them about what they know right now? >> steve, thank you very much. my first priority is the safety
and security of my constituents and those who are at lone star, faculty, staff and students. and i am in the midst of reaching out and have had an opportunity to speak to the president of the college. no one is ready even though there's a lot of representation about what this was, ready to make a conclusive statement as to whether or not there are anymore shooters. we do know what you all have been reporting is that someone has been seriously injured and we don't know the status of that person's injuryings. they're critical and praying for them and praying for those on the campus because a lot of students, this is a campus of 90,000 students. this particular one, or a system of 90,000, it is a tranquil campus, community college.
it is much a scene of tranquility and studying as you would any four-year college. embedded in the woods of harris county and very, very, very lovely. my concern to protect those who remain, to make sure that the law enforcement which there are large numbers of law enforcement now on campus, obviously have their own campus police, but they're there now and the leadership is taking a direction from law enforcement as we speak. >> yeah. i just wanted to follow up. s.e. asked a reporter on earlier about this. you know the area well if you could more about this system of schools, about the role it plays in the houston community and the greater houston area, and also, like we're hearing the initial reports of possibly this was gang related activity. do you know, has there been any history at the campuses of anything suggestive of gang related violence? >> this is the first time we have ever heard of this kind of incident occurring. 90,000 students.
one of the largest community colleges in the nation but as many of you know, community colleges are now getting to be sometimes the number one choice for first entering the higher education system and then many students will choose to go in to a four-year college based upon if i might say their finances. that's why these systems are important. they have an academic program but they have a technological program and one of the programs they have deals with first responders, police and fire and others so this k5campus is one their campuses and a while back, not only having academic but they have vocational and opened up a beauty and barber and kind of system where people of that -- who want this kind of profession can be engaged. but it's a regular campus with students walking with books, backpacks, bicycles. it is a place for learning and
i'm so sad, saddened this has happened. with respect to the gang violence, again, representations, leadership is hearing the same thing. but they have no final police conclusion or report that indicates to them what the reason or what the results or cause of this particular incident, except guns were fired more than one shot was fired and people have been injured. >> and congresswoman, to broaden the question, is there a history of gang-related activity or violence in the houston area more generally? >> we made great strides and interestingly enough, i was in a youth violence summit here on the hill. just come out as this was happening and i serve on that task force. but this campus and these campuses have no known recognized incidents of gang
activity. and again, it's an open campus so people can come and go as they desire. we don't know whether we're talking about students or someone who happened to find someone on the campus they had a disagreement with. all these facts i want the know, as well, what type of guns were used and important to the campus. again, this campus has a sense of learning commitment that i can't speak for them but i imagine they would not want to be gunned up if you will. they want their students to come there in safety. so no. houston and harris county made great strides. as every city, we faced our challenges with gang violence and certainly houston has another unique, unfortunately, circumstance in that they are near the border and sometimes they have some unique types of gangs but these gangs are quite different and would not find themselves on a tranquil campus
like lone star college. >> great state of texas and guns, when i go there, people are extraordinarily proud of tex texas's independent tradition and proud of the right to carry and gun ownership. but then, of course, this is part of what can happen. >> you're absolutely right. we probably are one of the first states that passed the conceal weapons process allowing people to carry a concealed weapon. repeatedly, state legislature and it may have been introduced again this time, wants to now open the doors of carrying those concealed weapons in churches and schools and college campuses which wisely the legislators, some 10, 15, maybe 20 years ago when the legislation was passed did not do. and i applause them for that. there have been a number of gun promotion measures put in the texas legislature, including one that says they would not follow any federal law.
let me say this. texas is a growing, thriving state of young population and many, many people moving in. i think the attitudes changed. i passed a gun safety ordinance where the room was filled with opponents and nra representatives and we passed it which was to hold people responsible for not storing their guns because we had an epidemic of children shooting themselves and out of that ordinance and ultimately becoming a state law we have seen a decrease in gun shootings amongst children taking their parent's guns. not perfect. so texas is changing. i want really now to focus on those injured but i'm just hoping as we get through this, find out who have been injured and pray for their family that we will be able to have a discussion, not only in texas but in the nation on how we address this question. >> congresswoman, thank you for joining us. >> thank you so very much for having me. >> jennifer summer with houston community newspapers and joins
us on the phone from the scene of this shooting. when's the latest? what do you know? >> well, i know that just about ten minutes ago, they had the houston police s.w.a.t. team go on the campus but relatively from -- in the past 30 minutes, the scene calmed down slightly but, you know, there's still some very tense people out here worrying about the loved ones on campus and those that were on campus when the shooting started. >> jennifer, how large is the police force on the campus? >> i'm not sure the exact number but i know that they have probably around 100 people that are constantly on campus. they, you know, they have cars that go through the parking lots and they go through the campus so they do have a pretty -- they have a very strong police force within the system and at north harris. >> jennifer, do we know, has there been progress? there have been reports a second
potential shooter was still on the loose. do we have any updates with regard to that? >> we are currently awaiting a press release, a press conference with some of the sheriffs and the houston police department. i know that the campus right now is still on lockdown. and so, they have not released any reports that they have caught the shooter or not. >> jennifer, do you know, is this a commuter school? are people living or staying on campus or coming and going throughout the day? >> this is a commuter school. people coming in all day and all morning and all evening. so, you know, it is an open campus so people could come in, you know, off of the streets. they could come in from different places so it's an open campus so this could be, you know, this could happen anywhere. >> talk more, jennifer, about the sort of surrounding community around this campus. what is the area like more broadly? >> area around north harris is
very, very rural. there's a lot of trees. you know? there are some subdivisions around here and which we did get word right after the shooting were on lockdown and in case the shooter got over there, nothing would happen. the area around the college is, you know, right by george bush intercontinental airport and very rural. a lot of trees. >> jennifer, thank you very much. let's bring back former fbi profiler clint van zant. we are still waiting on the details of all of this but if the reports are true -- >> thank you all. >> if the reports are true, clint, that this was gang related, that it resulted from an argument, is it fair to say that this shooting is more representative of the 30,000 firearm deaths that we see per year? do we have clint on the line? >> it was acted out on a college campus as we discussed earlier.
this is number four. four shootings so far just in the first three weeks of 2013 on college campuses. so, you know, we would like to say keep these things off campus. you know? we don't want guns. we don't want shooters on college campuses. but if the year continues like this, you know, the united states has got a real challenge ahead of us, especially when we look at the 1,500 firearms-related acts of violence that took place on college campuses in just a recent year. this is something that's growing, unfortunately, opposed to going away. >> clint, i think we all agree we don't want guns on college campuses for this purpose. but i have to say there's a shooting a day in chicago. i'm wondering why you think we don't go to breaking news every time one of those occurs? >> unfortunately, because there's too many shooting incident that take place in the united states. and, you know, for me, as a
former fbi profiler, i have to believe that there is -- there are some people on the psychological edge of the abyss. maybe not these two shooters on this campus. this was a personal act of violence but in many, many of the mass shootings we have seen relating to colleges, schools, movie theaters, it's been someone with a mental health issue. whenever they see something like this, acted out, it's for some people it creates an image of how to resolve conflict. unfortunately, people try to resolve conflict at the tip of a gun instead of debating it and discussing it back and forth. >> well, yeah. clint, to that point we talk about what it seems so far and so early in the reporting and seems an argument turned deadly. and when we talk about psycholo psychology, seems not to be a mental health shooting or mental illness shooting but a psychological issue with a gun and there are millions of responsible gun owners.
i want to say that. >> absolutely. >> but power corrupts and having a gun can change a person. do you think? and that having a gun can make an argument that would just be loud and nasty turn deadly. >> i think for some people having a gun instead of turning around and walking away or even running away, you feel you have to hold your ground. you have to stand there. now, you know, the investigation is going to play out in this. was it two students? was there an argument? did they know this was ongoing? do these two shooters, do they always carry a concealed weapon on the college campus or did they both bring the guns to campus today in anticipation of confronting each other? when you start blasting away with a semiautomatic pistol, that's what i'm suggesting, whether a revolver or semiautomatic pistol, there's bullets off floors, walls, buildings, that anyone can be hit, not just the people
shooting at each other. when they start blasting away, ten, 15 rounds -- >> sorry, clint. do you have some knowledge about the gun that was used in today's shooting? do you have some knowledge about the gun that was used or the magazine capacity that we don't know yet? >> no. i've heard -- i've heard at least one weapon suggested to be a semiautomatic pistol. depending on the caliber of the weapon, that could be five to 15 or 20 rounds. i think that still has to come out in something like this, too. >> right. >> but we see them played out right when the president of the united states and our congress has to consider dealing with weapons. again, as was pointed out, the vast number of americans are responsible gun owners. 300 million guns in america. 310 million americans. thank god we don't see them acted out every day. but unfortunately, when we do, there are family members, other people right now that are holding their hearts and hoping it's not their loved one that
was shot two or three times as we have been told at least one victim was shot today. >> sure. >> clint, as you mentioned, you are a former fbi profiler. talk about the differences in the profile between if this was gang related, if this was sort of argument, altercation versus the type of person who would do a mass shooting like we saw in sandy hook and aurora. >> sure. and in this particular situation, it appears, and again, you know, we have so many things wrong initially in sandy hook. >> very much so. >> it appears two individuals that confronted each other. as far as they were concerned, each was a potential victim of the other. but when we see a situation like sandy hook, or the many, many others. i saw a study done of shooters the last couple of years and the vast majority of mass shootings, mass murderers, all have some significant mental health condition. number two, they either stole
the weapon or got the weapon that it wasn't registered to them. they weren't registered gun owners. these are all situations where someone makes a decision and the case of a mass shooting, that they're angry, frustrated, they're prepared to die and they hold just like show the shooter at virginia tech and instead of looking in a mirror and holding himself responsible for his problems, he held every student and every faculty member responsible. we see these same type of things revisited over and over again because in many cases potential shooters see these acted out and it gives them the idea of a means of conflict resolution at the tip of a gun or for some maybe five minutes of fame before they die. >> clint, in the wake of aurora and sandy hook, one thing to say instructive about this right now while we wait to learn on the particulars is we are in such a heightened state of sort of
concern for acts like this that the first report of a shooting anywhere is going to cause, you know, msnbc and every other sort of news network i think to cover it the way we're now covering it because everybody's worried about the next sandy hook and aurora. do you think if we're in for that level of intensive coverage of every shooting a concern there that that leads to sort of -- that will give more potential shooters the idea you are talking about, so much more media coverage of any shooting now? >> i think the media's on the terrible horns of a dilemma. if you choose not to cover it, you have people all over this country and internationally demanding to know when's going on. if we choose to cover it, then you have people sitting there saying, aha. perhaps that's how i get famous, that's how i should at least resolve conflict. that's how i should work these things out. so do we give people the idea by covering these stories, do we
have people who decide to act out upon this or acting out independent? as we likely saw today. i don't think these two shooters should they be two people who were angry at each other, they probably weren't looking for their 15 minutes of fame. >> right. >> but again, they're carrying guns and weren't going to back down from each other. guns on college campuses on any campus just don't belong. that's not a place for firearms and it is -- i think the question you asked is so prevalent. if we have a gun, is there a tendency to stand our ground and try to use that gun in a confrontational situation where otherwise we could walk away or run away? legitimate gun owners like legitimate rights to carry a gun? absolutely. but in this situation, these guns probably never belonged on campus and legally shouldn't have been there. >> right. >> all right. let's bring in local radio reporter theron nicholas.
what are you hearing? >> we know that two of the students with multiple gunshot wounds transferred to a local houston hospital have entered surgery. it looks like they're obviously in serious condition. the third victim appears to have been treated at the scene and taken to another hospital. but no word on their condition. it doesn't appear to be as serious. but i guess the main issue is right now police, houston police department and harris county sheriff's department massively mobilized on a search for this second shooter in northeast houston. >> we are hearing that the school has tweeted or let people know that they have everything sort of under control there. are you hearing that? >> we heard that. we had a school administrator call in to us shortly after the police were on scene that the school was on lockdown. this campus, this lone star college on the north harris campus surrounded by the all dean independent school district. there's four other schools,
elementary school, high school and other campuses on lockdown and affects a lot of students and telling parents to stay away right now. police on the scene. telling parents to stay away. don't get the kids yet. >> thank you so much for that. nbc's janet shamlian arrived on the scene. when's the latest for us? >> all right. we are on the scene. i wanted to pick up on something you were hearing from the radio reporter. not just the school affected. we have a number of other schools in the area and nimitz school. i have a parent here with me now. dee salas. she cannot get to her daughter in ninth grade. in the school behind us. what are you hearing? >> i'll call the school multiple times and they're going to stay on lockdown until they feel the kids are safe even if it's past school let out hours keeping the kids there no matter what time it's going to be. >> does your daughter have a phone? is she able to communicate with you? >> no. she has a phone but always make her leave it at home so she does
not have that. so i'm sure she's just as concerned as i am as a parent. >> this is about the time that schools get out around here. not long from now. did you come to pick her up? did you hear about this? >> i did not. i got an alert and i was at work and left work to come over here. whether they let the students out or not, i need to be as close to my child as i can. >> the radio reporter saying parents should stay away right now and does not sit with you. >> it does not. if my child is here, i need to be close and sitting up in a tree. i just need to be close to my baby. >> how do you think she is reacting given the current events in the last month or so? >> very concerned. she's definitely a mother's child. and so, i'm sure she's probably crying just as i was at work when i heard the news and one shooter was still on the loose. >> all right. dee, thank you. we'll keep you posted if we get any information from this end. >> okay. >> thank you very much. it's not just the school. it is younger children, as well. right now, a very heavy police
presence around here from a number of agencies and a news conference with an update in just a short time from now. we have possibly one shooter in custody. possibly two shooters. details are very sketchy. heavy presence remains here. school's about a quarter of a mile bemihind me at the right. >> janet, as you mentioned -- >> back to you. >> this is about the time that schools are getting out. are a lot of parents starting to gather on the scene, trying to get their children and unable to? >> yeah. there's a line of cars behind me. are you able to go that? this may not be real pretty but you can see the cars lining up here. these are a number of parents just kind of lined up right now and they're not able to get any further than what you see and that's still quite a ways away from their school. just waiting in their cars, waiting for word on their children. many of these children in the
high school and four other schools around here, as well. >> all right. thank you, janet. let's bring in psychiatrist dr. joshua weaner. we have a lot of parents in the houston area who cannot get to their children. is that only raising the temperature that we have the parent who is want to get to their kids and cannot? >> i think only natural, of course. people feel scared. they want to comfort their kids. particularly the parents who know their kids are vulnerable to anxiety. if they're in lockdown in the schools, that's a high anxiety situation. they want to make sure that they're okay. i think all of these things happening and would seem like clusters raises the anxiety of the country. the parents are nervous, of course, the kids a little bit nervous on the lockdown and hopefully the teachers and everybody because of the twitter and things like that, they're able to tell the kids everything's okay.
we need to do this for precautionary measures. >> doctor, i wanted to pick up on a conversation that steve was having with former fbi profiler clint van zant and ask you this question. there's a question about how the media covers the events. only we have heightened interest because we have had a rash of tragedies and school shootings. on the one hand, are we providing fodder for those who want the 15 minutes of fame on the one hand, on the other hand are we doing the public a service raising the level of knowledge that they have about shootings and about tragedies around the country? >> right. you know, i was listening to what clint had to say and hit the money or hit the mark there. i think that it's absolutely true. the media in a bind here because we there's a copycat phenomenon with these things. particularly more of the studies in this area with suicide so when there are suicide that are talked about repeatedly in the media we know there tend to be
more and more of these things and same can be said of the shooti ining incidents but this not be similar to the ones done in the past and i think that ultimately i think there's more good that comes from the media reporting on these things than more bad. i think that it raises awareness, making people talk about the issues. hopefully schools then take the measure that is are necessary to ensure that they're safe and that they can handle the situations when they arise so it's a fine line to be walked but i think ultimately the media has to report on this. >> i think you are right. the media has to report on this. we see a way saying some killings are more important than others and lives more important than others. s.e. made the interesting point earlier that this sort of thing happens in chicago, l.a. detroit all the time. we could pretty much do this every single day if we wanted to do. but we don't but then something happens at a school and say this is important.
breaking coverage for multiple hours on this and not going to do that when something happens in the projects in chicago an we are saying as a nation these killings are really important. let's focus and these killings are not. >> right. but i suspect that if these things were to start to happen on a regular basis on campuses after a while there's media burnout and i think people would start to not pay as much attention and one factor. i think the other thing is in general we like to think that the campuses, schools, places to focus on learning, having a nice time. everything is safe. so i think we all know and recognize that the mean streets of chicago or inner city, wherever, things more likely to happen than college campuses or schools. so again, i think if this stuff were to start to happen on a more frequent basis, people say, yeah, here we go. another one of these school shootings. fortunately, i don't think that happens any time soon. >> you were talking about, you know, incidents like this sort of raise the overall anxiety
level of the country. you have whether it's aurora, newtown, you know, whether it's this today, again, whatever the individual facts end up being here, statistically speaking, the odds of you or someone you know ending up in a school shooting, mall shooting, movie theater shooting absolutely very, very, very remote. what would you say to somebody watching media coverage for six months worried about this happening to them or someone they know? >> i think it depends on the age of the person you're talking to. talking to young kids, say maybe fourth grade through seventh grade, you want to keep it very general. you're going to want to say, you think, these things are extremely rare but you are safe. there's nothing to worry about. you need to provide a lot of reassurance to younger kids. they don't do well with the probability issue. they need things to be more black and white. with young kids, those under fourth grade, i wouldn't bring it up. i would try to shield them as
much as possible from the issues. they don't have any reason to know about this. i think as people get older, you could be more nuanced about how you talk about it. i think everybody recognizes there's no way to guarantee safety anywhere in the world and get in to the interesting conversations that can be helpful. things like how do you think people should handle conflicts? what do you think about people having guns in situations where they're angry or upset? what do you think about the president's plan about trying to limit gun violence? so on and so forth. there are endless questions to be asked about this to make for some very interesting, thoughtful, hopefully productive conversations. these are actually the sorts of conversations that i would like to see take place in some middle schools and high schools around this country because i think they're important things for kids to be aware of and thinking about. >> under 10, you don't need to know about this stuff but you can't help it. it comes in through the windows almost. my 5-year-old is aware of these things happening.
what do we say to the babies 5, 6, 7, 8 years old happening to be watching msnbc with their parents and see this happening? how do we explain this to them? >> you want to limit the exposure they have. as much as that's great that people are watching this on tv, i think if you have a young child nearby, it's time to turn the tv off and maybe kind other ways to get your information. but i think you say to the younger kids that the sworld generally safe. the people around them making sure nothing bad happens to them. particularly if they have a tendency to anxiety, they have a very difficult time managing the emotions that they may feel as a result of seeing things. also, the other thing to keep in mind is that when you show the images over and over of police and campuses being surrounded by police and a lot of chaos, it is hard for the young minds to comprehend that and start to think that maybe this thing is
happening over and over again. they have a hard time recognizing that it's an isolated event under control and showing highlights of what happened. >> yeah, doctor, you talked about having conversations, conversations about conflict resolution in middle schools. i think that's an excellent idea and we often try to talk about what to do after the fact instead of before the fact and i think those kinds of conversations are really great. what kinds of things would you suggest to a middle school audience in terms of conflict resolution? >> well, you know, i think that there's this thing called emotional intelligence and it's a way for people to just go about interacting with one another and there are skills to be taught. you want to talk to people about to express their needs, how to express frustrations in way that is are productive rather than destructive. and there are tips that people can learn and you can do some role playing in the school setting, so kids can act it out. i'm sure several of them probably get a good laugh out of
it and kind of funny and still probably listening to some degree. and i think that they're going to be able to have the opportunities to practice these things. i also think that one of the things to do is we really need to take a look at the whole culture and environment in schools. you want to have a school setting where kids feel safe and where there are these bully prevention programs in place and these are strong programs. this is not just an assembly here or there or a lecture or a guidance counselor coming in talking about how mean to mistreat somebody else. we are talking about a cultural aspect to a school where they're building in to the school setting ways in which people deal with one another who are different. ways for bystanders to react to situations. these are the kind of things that can be brought in to a school setting that could change the dynamic in the school setting and also hopefully over time repeatedly teach kids how they're supposed to deal with situations when they're having a difficult time and resolve them, again, in a productive rather than a destructive way.
>> doctor, we have been talking sort of broadly about the country at large, how process this information, maintain that feeling of safety and keep things in perspective. but if you're an actual member of the community here, i can only imagine how it would shake you to your core that the very place you thought you were sending your child to to be safe and don't worry about it is exactly the place that an incident like this occurred. how do you if you're in that community get back that sense of safety and security? >> well, i think there's no substitute for time so i think that's going to be the most helpful thing here as time goes on, emotions will settle down. people realize that things are safe and they can be okay. also, information is going to be particularly important. so the more we learn about today's particular events i think if people realize maybe this was an isolated event, not some random person on campus and
rather a conflict between two people and they feel a reassurance because of that and can't underestimate the value of reaching out to people in your community, talking about it and the bind or the bonding together that could take place is very healing and going to help people feel much more comfortable, as well. >> doctor, hard to look at this as an isolated event when we have an epidemic of gun violence in america. how do we learn as the adults of america how to deal with conflicts without getting destructive, as you called it? >> what we need to do is take a look at the way violence and conflict resolution rather is portrayed in the media. so i think we really do need to take a look at the tv shows. i mean, when you look at television, that is a way that a lot of kids in particular learn how to behave. and when you see people behaving in angry aggressive ways, shooting each other, treetding each other basically in way that is are inappropriate, but yet, they're the heroes on the tv show or you don't see the
consequences of the negative actions further down on the tv show and the families crying and all the bad things that can happen. that has an impact on people so i think you need to take a welcome another the media. and i think that people really need to be talking about, again, in the school settings, just in general, how do we deal with one another? i think ultimately there's really no substitute for people really wanting to take a look at themselves and recognizing whether they themselves are handling themselves appropriately when they become angry or upset. i think that no matter how many tools you have out there to help somebody deal with their anger or their emotions, if they're not interested in trying to learn the techniques to calm themselves down, you're going to have a very hard time trying to get that person to change their way of interacting with somebody else. >> all right. doctor, stand by. i want to bring back former fbi profiler clint van zant. we have been having the
discussion about the media and how the news media in particular should be handling situations like this. we got in to it with you earlier but maybe if you bottom line it a little bit from your standpoint. the next time, you know, god forbid news of a shooting somewhere, what do you think the most important things are for the news media to keep in mind approaching the story? >> well, you know, we have to consider what's going on in the united states. last year, los angeles saw 300 homicides. new york city about 4020. as you know, chicago topped all the cities with 532 homicides. these are people as your last guest who i have respect for, josh said, the conflict resolution skills we're not offering appropriate conflict resolution schools. we are giving bad examples. you know what? i don't care whether it's the movie industry or the gaming industry. everybody holds their hands up and says, i'm not responsible. and reality is, that game
doesn't make somebody a video game doesn't make somebody kill another person a. movie doesn't make someone kill another person. but it desensitizes us. and it gives people an example of how to resolve conflict in a negative and violent way. television, i think, you guys are handcuffed. i think you have to go with the story. but again, i think your point is valid. what about the 532 murders in chicago last year? did we go viral every day with the murder in chicago? >> yeah. >> and the reality is i'm afraid we are getting numb to these things. >> yeah, clint. >> accepting this in america. >> i think you are probably right. we are getting numb to them. we don't also cover, you know, the knife homicides either. but we all want to feel safe from criminals whether that's in our schools, in our churches, on the streets of new york, in our homes. do gun free zones work? >> i don't think so. i think, you know, i don't want
to sound like an nra member because, you know, the reality is i'm not, but i think that the gun laws we have in this country pretty much govern the people who are safe, who are sane, who handle a weapon in a responsible manner. and again, time and again when we see these mass shootings, we see the crimes against another person, these are not gun owners who have gone through safety courses. these are not people with a legitimate permit to carry. 300 million guns in america. 310 million americans. those guns are out there. and until we change the culture and until we change the mentality of using guns to resolve conflict, we're going to see more and more of these type of shootings. whether it's a mass murderer or whether it's two people either on the streets of chicago or a texas community college try to resolve conflict at the tip of a
gun. >> clint, the vast majority of these shootings that we're talking about are young men who are about 16, 17 to 25 years old. what is it about the psychology, the ego, the testosterone of being a young man that makes this come to this young violence head so often? >> well, you know, when we're young i think we think we're bulletproof. i recall being 16, 17 years old and being in a car with other high school students and driving 100, 120 miles per hour. and yelling and saying, this is a good time. we all could have died in that car. but at 16, 17, 18, 22 years old, you don't think about that. you think you're going to live forever. and in the case of guns, there's also this macho thing. there's this -- the other guy's in the street in a gun so i should have a gun. there's something that a gun makes me taller or tougher.
that's all inner woven in to our culture and taken us a lot of years to get here and it's going to take us a lot of years to come away from that if as a society we choose to do it. >> okay. clint stand by. we heard from a college representative, jed young of lone star college saying the first call came in to police at 12:31 local time. the shooting between two individuals, one of the shooters shot. two students also virred in the crossfire. we know the other shooter fled the lone star college north harris campus. the situation is under control. the danger mitigated. the school evacuated and will remain on lockdown. we'll get a live update of local emergency officials after a quick break. stay with us. when i first felt the diabetic nerve pain, of course, i had no idea what it was. i felt like my feet were going to sleep. it progressed from there to burning like i was walking on hot coals
and buy my own supplies. that's a great idea. i'm going to go... we got clients in today. [ male announcer ] save on ground shipping at fedex office. moments ago local affiliate kprc spoke to a student who witnessed the events there this afternoon. >> we saw two stretchers with people in them. we saw s.w.a.t. running all over the place, k-9s, police getting their stuff ready, getting their guns out. people running out of the school. >> what did you do? did you run the other direction to get out of the area or did you try to go see if others needed help? >> me and kyle did, we ran across the street asking people if they were already, asking questions, and just getting interviews from people and see what was going on. >> what are you hearing about the shooters? what happened? obviously, we have heard several accounts about arguments in the
library. >> that's what we heard. we heard two people were arguing, they got mad and moments after that gunshots were going off. bullets were flying and hit people next to the two guys. >> joining us now is mark smith with the harris county emergency corps. what is the latest information you have for us. >> well, as far as the ems response, i can tell you that we did transport three individuals from the scene. as far as their condition, one was described as critical and two were described as urgent. i do know that we transported two of the individuals to one of our level one trauma facilities here in houston. the other individual, from what i understand, was transported to houston medical center. >> i understand also that the fbi and atf were dispatched to help with the events of today. is that typical or how does something like that get triggered? >> well, i can't really speak to
that specifically. we are the ems agency that responded. as far as the coordinated response, from what i understand because it was school related, that's maybe what triggered the fbi response, but as far as, you know, concrete answer, i, unfortunately, can't give that to you. >> can you you give us more medical detail of what's going on? can you say how many shots they took? are they in surgery now? are they out of surgery? what's going on? >> from what i understand, and obviously the hospital will have a better feel for that, from what i understand they did go immediately into surgery after we transported them. our first units were dispatched approximately 12:24, so, you know, i don't know the specific time as far as when we delivered them to the hospital, but sometime within the first 30 minutes and from what i understand they immediately went into surgery. so, again, the hospital will
definitely have a much better feel for how their condition is currently. >> and, mark, in addition to the victims who were shot, we were hearing reports earlier that there was another victim who may have suffered a heart attack. is that still our best understanding? >> that's my understanding as well. >> and when will we find out more information from the hospitals? do we feel pretty confident about the number of victims that we have and their status right now? >> from what i understand, yes. we don't anticipate transporting any more individuals from the scene. we do still currently have an ambulance on scene, but i believe that's more in an abundance of caution at the request of the harris county sheriff's office. with that large a response, it's better to have resources immediately available if they're needed. >> absolutely. mark smith, harris county emergency corps. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> we'll be back after this. you turn for legal matters? at legalzoom, we've created a better place
as we wrap up this hour of coverage, i want to quickly bring back former fbi profiler clint van zandt, and, clint, we were actually just talking about one of the stats you put out there, the 1,500 i believe you said gun incidents on campus every year. help us put this in perspective. what is the typical profile of those incidents. talk a little bit more about that stat and just how common these types of violent incidents on campus are today. >> well, this is getting to be more and more of a challenge. in that same year, 2011 is our most recent statistics, there were also 16 murders that took
place on college campuses outside of the mass shooting-type situations that we see. and i think what we're going to find in this situation that we're looking at today is the number of people who really carry guns on campus that we don't know anything about. the number that either have a gun in their belt or have a gun in their backpack who carry that on and off campus every day and other students, faculty, university police have no idea how many guns are coming and going. with 300 million guns in this country, they're going to do it, and until we find a way to culturally and to psychologically convince people not to carry guns and not to bring them into a situation like this, we just don't have the way to keep guns off of a college campus like this. we can stop them coming into a grade school perhaps by metal detectors at the door, but, again, we saw thisiv