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Erin Burnett Outfront

Active Shooter Reported At Fort Hood; U.S. Official: A Shooter In Fort Hood Incident Is Dead

Aired April 02, 2014 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. We want to begin with our breaking news tonight. There's an active shooter at Fort Hood in Colleen, Texas. This is an ongoing situation. The base right now is in lock down. Security personnel are chasing a suspect. Military officer on base at Fort Hood tells us he heard sirens and has been told to shelter in place.

We want to note, there are more than 40,000 military personnel on the Fort Hood base. The president of the United States has been briefed on this fluid situation and I can tell you right now literally this information just coming in to us here at CNN, a hospital nearby say they are receiving patients. They don't have a number. As we said, this is an active and ongoing situation.

I want to get straight to our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. Barbara, what is the very latest you can tell us?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: What we are now hearing from the Army, Erin, is that there are, in fact, multiple injuries from this incident, which began perhaps looking at the clock just over an hour ago when the first reports came in of an active shooter at Fort Hood. The Army very official information, very scarce. There are injuries they say. It means multiple injuries.

At this point, all indications are this situation is still an active shooter. We've been on the phone with various people. We know who were at Fort Hood. They are still hearing sirens. They are being told to shelter in place, to lock their doors, to stay away from windows. This is everything on Fort Hood from battle hardened combat veterans to families who live there, who have children.

It is a very large sprawling base, security personnel, Erin, have responded on multiple fronts. Security, army security personnel on the base and the local town, Colleen, Texas, the Bell County Sheriff's Department in Texas, all responding along with state troopers at this hour.

The civilian law enforcement securing the perimeter outside the gate, trying to ensure that the communities there are safe. A local college has been evacuated for the evening. So this is a very complex ongoing situation at this hour. But we want to emphasize information still very sketchy -- Erin.

BURNETT: We have some video, Barbara, that's just coming in given the fluid nature. This is off of Instagram. You're hearing -- Barbara, they are giving the warning, you can hear someone, you know, in distress or fear there. There's been reports that this could have happened at a medical center on Fort Hood.

There's been reports of perhaps one casualty. I mean, there are so many questions at this point. Can you tell us anything at all about whether there is one shooter or whether there are many shooter, anything about casualties or at this point we don't know?

STARR: Well, I don't think we do. That looks to me like a housing area at Fort Hood and that's worth remembering. There are families with children who live there. There have been multiple different reports of where on base this may have started. So until we at CNN can confirm that we're not going to go with any of these unconfirmed reports.

People being told to shelter in place until this situation is resolved. The question of one or two shooters. We tend to see these early reports in shooting incidents where people have genuine heart felt reports where there's more than one shooter. Typically we all know most of these incidents turn out to be a single shooter.

But the actual fact, Erin, in this incident we just don't have enough information to know yet. We do not know if this is a military person. We don't know if it's civilian. We don't know how the person got weapons on base. So many questions right now.

BURNETT: So many questions and we are going to talk, hopefully get some answers to some of them but of course, we're monitoring the situation. Barbara will be back with us as she gets more information.

Joining me on the phone now is the mayor of Killeen, Texas, Dan Corbin. Mayor, of course, this base in Colleen, what can you tell me about what's happening now? We that point we know this is an active situation, but there are so many questions.

MAYOR DANIEL CORBIN, KILLEEN, TEXAS (via telephone): Yes. Fort hood is right across the street from Killeen. There's over 41,000 soldiers stationed there. The nature of the incident, first Calvary Division which has seen a lot of action both in Iraq and Afghanistan and the third armored corps just got back for being a major headquarters in Afghanistan for the international security assistance force.

There are lots of medical facilities in the area and lots of law enforcement. The Bell County Sheriff's Department, our state troopers, everybody in the area along with the Killeen Police Department are ready to assist in any way. We positioned our ambulances at our central firestation. We have eight firestations in town and we kind of consolidated those not in service so we're ready to assist when called upon.

BURNETT: Are you still at this point, Mayor, still unsure whether this is ongoing or whether they are still pursuing a shooter or, again, we don't -- we're assuming one shooter, but it's unclear as to whether there is more. Do you have any answers to those questions?

CORBIN: No, we don't have any information than what I've heard you all talk about on CNN. We do know that level one trauma center that's like a hospital in Temple some 30 miles away and it's logical they would take seriously injured people to that hospital. We have two hospitals and a major medical facility on Fort Hood.

There's plenty of medical treatment facilities around to accommodate whatever is needed. We just don't know exactly what's going on there right now, but we have a lot of capable people out there in Fort Hood and they are used to dealing with combat situations. And I'm sure that they are very capable of handling this.

BURNETT: Mayor, thank you very much for taking the time. We appreciate it as we're trying to get more information in again and the active situation, whether there is a shooter, whether there are multiple shooters. We don't have answers to these questions right now.

But as we indicated Fort Hood is one of the most well-known bases in the entire United States. Obviously where Major Nadal Hassan killed 13 people, wounded 32 others in a mass shooting in 2009. Everyone watching this program is very familiar with that particular situation. There are 41,000 military personnel stationed on this and another 10,000 civilians.

I want to get to Tom Foreman. Tom, those numbers should give people the sense of scale. This is the largest single employer in the state of Texas. Can you show us why this is such a significant and sprawling facility?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's right between Waco and Austin. If we fly in here and take a wider look. This defines the base here, it spread thought wayside to side. You mentioned numbers there. All in all about 50,000 or so civilians and military personnel there. Let me show you a few key areas to think about as we talk about this.

For example, you may have heard them talking about closing down the community college and evacuating it. It's over here at this end. Also at this end and one of the reasons this area is so sensitive down at this end. The whole thing is a big issue. If you look at the northwest corner of the base, move up here, the northern, the western end of it this is where Major Hassan's shooting took place.

We know that there's a gate down here. This is called the Clear Creek Gate. Down at this corner of the base. We haven't heard as much about that. We heard more about the gate over here, the Bernie Beck Gate, which is the main gate going in, which has many of those thousands of people coming in and out every day. That's been closed according to a reporter on the scene.

We heard talk about the core headquarters, which is right in the middle up in here. And we can move not very far away to get to Darnell Hospital, which is another one of the facilities we've been talking about a lot. Again, as you know, a moment ago, Erin, we don't really know where things have happened. We know where we're hearing more and more talk about things.

There's a lot of things we can't talk about. I'll show you one thing to keep in mind. This particular road that goes sort of through the middle of things is called Tank Destroyer Road. Many of the reports we're getting seem to be at least vaguely connected to that corridor. Again, many of these may be false.

They may be early leads where people will prove to be wrong, but it is notable so many of them seem to be fairly close to that. Again a central road through the center of the camp. It would be easy for many things to be close to it not by any design simply because it played out that way -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Tom Foreman, thank you. One thing we can report here is a nearby hospital, Scott White Hospital said they are receiving patients, but yet don't have a number. I want to go to Brian Todd who is working his sources. Brian -- actually instead I want to go Evan Perez, our justice correspondent who has some breaking developments here -- Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We are told that at least one -- there was at least one shooter. There have been reports there was a second shooter, but we're being warned by authorities that we've been talking to that it is possible people are mistaking a second person perhaps a first responder as a second shooter. So we've been caused that may or may not be accurate.

We're for certain there is at least one shooter and at this point that person was believed shot. We don't know whether or not that was self-inflicted or not. There are multiple injuries at the scene. So we are still trying to determine as to how many of those there are and how serious those are, Erin.

But at this point it's going to take several hours for authorities to get into those buildings. It's a very large base as you know. It is something that's going to take some time before authorities can clear, can get everybody out safely and determine there's no other threats anywhere else on the base. Something that will take several hours. Unfortunately, some of those people sheltering in place are going to be there for some time.

BURNETT: Evan, let me be very clear. When you say that the shooter, the one shooter they identified as the shooter was shot you say you're not sure self-inflicted or not, but that shooter is dead, right?

PEREZ: Yes, it's not clear whether or not that person was shot by a first responder. We are told that that person is deceased, but it's not clear whether or not that was self-inflicted or not. Again, there are these reports that we had the local police just on the air just little while ago and they said that they were hearing both reports of one shooter and two shooters and that's something, obviously, in these incidents it's always very dangerous, always very unclear what the early information is and whether it turns out to be accurate.

At this point, it's still an active situation because they have to clear all those buildings and there's thousands of people on that base who now have to be brought out and made sure that they are safe. BURNETT: All right, and Evan, before you go, do you have any sense at this point as to whether the shooter who we can now report has been killed, although we don't know whether by responder or by his own hand, do you have any idea whether that shooter was a member of the United States military, a civilian or someone else?

PEREZ: Well, that's something we're trying verify at this point. It's believed, you know, obviously this base is a very tightly restricted place. It's also very tightly guarded. It would probably had some kind of association with Fort Hood to be able to get into this area. That is not something that I've been able to determine. We've heard -- we're hearing from sources that they are and, you know, at this point it's so early in the process. I think it's best to try to verify that before we can say for sure.

BURNETT: All right, thank you very much. Evan is going to continue to work his sources as we try get any developments that we can.

But Evan Perez just breaking the news that at least one shooter, which is all that we know there is at this point although there are questions as to whether there was possibly a second shooter, one shooter has been killed at the scene. Uncertain whether that was by his own hand or by a responder.

Again, we do not know full casualties at this point. Tom Fuentes, a former assistant director of the FBI, CNN law enforcement analyst. He is joining us now. Tom, base is in lockdown. We have this significant development. A shooter has been neutralized as in killed. Tell us what you're hearing from your sources from the FBI, who I know is now actively involved in this situation.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Hi, Erin. What I've heard there's one person dead, and believed to be about 15 people wounded. I did not specifically hear what Evan heard that the person dead is believed to be the shooter. I'm not doubting Evan just different sources are hearing different things at different times.

But apparently one person is believed dead at the scene, and, you know, all the hope would be that it's the one and only person responsible for the shootings. That would mean it's essentially a safe situation even if an unresolved until they know as Evan mentioned they have to clear the other buildings. They have to verify it was a lone person if this in fact turns out to be the shooter.

BURNETT: Let me bring in Seth Jones now with Rand Corporation. Seth did a lot of work with the Major Nadal Hasan case, the Fort Hood shooter from 2009, 13 people murdered then, 32 wounded. You heard Tom Fuentes, Seth, saying he has heard there are 15 people wounded, uncertain on deaths right now. But we can report one death. Question is whether that's the shooter or not. What are you hearing, Seth?

SETH JONES: I'm hearing a lot of the same thing. One shooter, he appears to be dead right now. But there's still a lot of uncertainty including motive. This is one thing that's interesting as we move along with the motives for this. Back in the 2009 case, this turned out to be an act of terrorism. Somebody connected to Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen. It is very unclear at this point what has happened and what the motives are.

BURNETT: Let me ask each of you, there's at that report here that appeared on foxnews.com that said the FBI and military were actually hunting for an Army recruit who had been recruited in February of this year and then was kicked out because he was suspected of plotting a Fort Hood inspired Jihad on the web site they put the FBI Kansas City division alert about this gentleman who is also known as Mohamed Abdullah Hasan who also went by the name of Booker. Do you know anything about this, Tom, and whether these two things in any way would be related?

THOMAS FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No. I heard the same report, Erin, but I don't know. I have not had a chance to confirm that they are related to this incident.

BURNETT: Seth do you know anything about this situation at all, again, this recruit who was kicked out because he was suspected of plotting a Fort Hood-inspired Jihad?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. But I will say that fort hood and several other bases have come up repeatedly on jihadist networks as being targets of attack in response for U.S. activity overseas so not surprising that it could be a potential threat area.

BURNETT: All right. Thanks very much to both of you. You are going to be us throughout the hour. We'll be going live to the scene in just a couple of moments.

We'll take a break and be back as soon as we can to go live and show you what's happening on the scene. Our Ed Lavandera is getting there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: And our breaking news coverage continues of an active shooter situation at the military base in Fort Hood, Texas. Here's what we can tell you right now.

The situation to our knowledge started about an hour ago. There is at least one confirmed shooter who we understand has been neutralized. That means killed. We're not sure by his own hand or by the hand of a first responder. There are multiple injury reports. We have multiple people going to a local hospital. We don't yet know exactly how many and we do not have a count for you in terms of how many people may potentially have lost their lives.

The base though, which has more than 40,000 military personnel and another 10,000 close to it, civilians went into lockdown today. Eerie reminder what happened with major Nadal Hasan where 13 people were murdered back in 2009. And here's what happened on that base today.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BURNETT: And you hear there that the voice on the loudspeaker saying take shelter immediately. You also hear a child's voice, of a child who is afraid. As our Barbara Starr reporting, with the size of this base, there are residential areas and that appears to be what we're looking at right here where you heard the loudspeaker telling people to take shelter immediately.

Our understanding right now is that it's still a take shelter situation on that base, an active situation. I want to get to our Ed Lavandera. He's on his way to Fort Hood racing to get there.

Ed, and also of course, you were covering day in and day out the horrific murder and shooting situation there in 2009 with Major Nadal Hassan.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Hey, Erin, it is very true. The scars of that horrible day back in 2009 is something that is still very evident there at Fort Hood.

In just a few months ago army installation there went through the intensely secure situation murder trial of Major Nadal Hassan that ended in his conviction and sentenced to death. So this is a community that has been started by this tragedy similar to this already and live with this constantly. So a very traumatic situation once again there.

And I can tell you from having spent a great deal of time covering Fort Hood for many years here in Texas, the area that I believe all of this is going on is a high traffic area, one of the main entrances to the army installation there. And as you mentioned, Erin, this is also an area, from what I could tell, what's essentially a neighborhood, thousands of families that live inside the army installation that come there for their deployments, stationed there for several years at a time. So you're playing that video and hear the voice of the children. It is not only day in and day out of army soldiers going on, but this is also a community. And as you're driving some of the streets there inside the installation, it would be just like driving through any other neighborhood in many ways once you get into those more residential areas. So that's obviously a major cause for concern tonight.

BURNETT: All right. And Ed Lavandera, as we said, is on his way to the Fort Hood base. We'll be checking in with him as he gets more information.

I want to just emphasize to all of you, it's difficult to get in touch with people. There has been some people on the base who are in lock down who have reached out via social media but others are saying, it's very difficult to get calls out. That the towers may be down in terms of communication. But as soon as we get people on that base who are able to talk to you we'll bring them to you.

I want to go back to Evan Perez though, our justice correspondent.

And Evan, what your learning especially as we figure out how many people have been affected. And whether this situation is active now that one shooter has been killed?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well Erin, this is a situation that is going to take probably several hours. It will be continued to be classified as active for several hours, at least until they can secure the buildings involved and determine that there's no other further threat to the military personnel on that base. And thousands of people there that need to be secured, obviously.

You mentioned earlier the concern about this report that came out earlier in the week about a military recruit who the FBI had warned the defense department to be on the lookout for. We've been told by sources that that is not at all at play here, that person was found earlier in the week and was interviewed and determined that there was no public safety issue at all.

So it is not at all related to this incident. We can now tell people so people should not be concerned about that particular thing. But, you know, it's obviously still a situation that they need to determine exactly what happened here, whether or not there was any terrorism involved or whether or not it's something that just was a beef between perhaps some soldiers on that want base, Erin.

BURNETT: All right. And, Evan, a significant development that you're saying, it's not related to this. As we said, this was a report which was on FOX News.com about an ex-army recruit suspected of plotting a Fort Hood-inspired jihad.

So Evan, now reporting that that individual has been apprehended. He is not linked to this situation. But Evan, obviously, I heard you loud and clear. We don't yet know who is involved with this. So you don't know whether the motive is terrorism or some sort of a workplace dispute or something else.

What about in terms of casualties? Tom Fuentes is former assistant director of FBI. FBI, of course, just said on this program, he heard up to 15 people had been injured. We don't yet know in terms of casualties. What your hearing?

PEREZ: Well, you know, that's one of those things especially in this stage of the game. It is always very -- the numbers very, very greatly. And so, you know, I've heard as little as three. And as Tom said, you know, as many as 15. And those numbers sometimes are just because people get injured as they are trying to flee the scene. So people might fall and hurt themselves so they might be -- some people are frightened and are taken to the hospital.

So, you know, we don't know exactly how many people were injured in the shooting incident itself. We haven't been able to determine that and I don't think we can know that until everybody has been taken out and everybody has been talked to and determine whether or not they were injured by the shooter or, perhaps, injured in fleeing the scene of the crime there. So I think it's going to be something we have to wait a little while to be able to determine, Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Evan.

Evan will continue to work his sources. We are going to continue to follow this active shooter situation in Fort hood, Texas.

Our breaking news coverage on CNN continues. We'll be back OUTFRONT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BURNETT: All right. Our breaking news coverage of the active shooter situation at the Fort Hood military base in Killeen, Texas, continues.

Right now, we can tell you there was at least one shooter, that shooter has been killed. We don't yet know whether by his own hand or that of a first responder. We also don't know who that shooter was, whether the shooter was a member of the military, a civilian. We don't know. We don't know motive.

We are trying to get all these details here and I want to bring in Evan Perez, our justice correspondent, who's been breaking a lot of these headlines for us.

Evan, you were just telling us moment ago that you could confirm the shooter has been killed. What else can you tell us now?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, we're told that, you know, some of initials reports that reached law enforcement here in Washington is this began it appears as some kind of soldier to soldier disagreement. Now, again, these are the early indications which are often later proven to be inaccurate.

So, I mean, one of the things we want to do is make sure that people understand these are the early reports that we got. And we haven't confirmed, the authorities have not confirmed whether indeed that was the case. You know, often this is the type of thing witnesses see and they report to authorities when they fled the building.

So, it is one of those things they are checking out. You know, this doesn't mean that they ruled out all other possibilities including perhaps, you know, a terrorism nexus or just some other type of mass shooting incident if that indeed was the intent of the shooter.

So that is the initial report that was at least sent to law enforcement officials was that it began as some kind of a soldier on soldier disagreement. But, again, it's something that they are still trying to check out, Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Evan, thank you.

Evan is going to continue working his source.

I want to bring Tom Fuentes in, former assistant director of the FBI, CNN law enforcement analyst, along with Seth Jones, specializes in counterterrorism and terrorism, and General Spider Marks, former U.S. Army who, of course, live as you were just telling me for four years on this base.

We were just playing and I want to play it again if I can what we just heard an hour ago when they were first telling people to take shelter, to show everybody, this is a base where you have a lot of children, a lot of families living. This is how that alarm went out.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

BURNETT: And you hear the overhead, General, of -- they are saying take shelter immediately. You hear the children who are scared.

This is a base you lived on it for four years. This is a huge base. You have tens of thousands of people living.

GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Massive.

BURNETT: And we're hearing this could have happened along the main road, many reports we haven't been able to confirm at this point exactly where, what motive, who, but reports could it have been along that main road. Tell us what that looks like, what that might mean.

MARKS: It's a large boulevard. Fort Hood is really a massive -- in fact, it's the largest installation, military installation in the United States. Over, right at 50 percent of the Army's heavy combat capabilities are at Fort Hood.

So, you have a division, you have a number of brigade size units -- don't want to be too arcane here -- but you have a bunch of folks, a bunch of support units. As you indicated, what you really have is a large population of family members. And all of those units have deployed within the last couple of years as you know.

So, this is an organization, this is an installation, this is a community that's very tight, has bonded together very, very well. It's not unusual to see individual soldiers have a spat, have a disagreement. We don't know yet if it's soldier on soldier. We really don't know those details.

BURNETT: Right.

MARKS: But you can see with that type of churn, that type of turmoil there may be some disagreements that might be on the surface. We just simply don't know.

But it is a large installation. It's a magnificent place to be a soldier, to be a family member, it's a very tight community.

BURNETT: And, Tom Fuentes, what can you tell us, the questions we still have out there about who the shooter was, whether this was soldier on soldier, whether this was terrorism related. I know as you're on this program, you're on your BlackBerry you're on your phone.

What can you tell us?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Right now, Erin, I can tell now thing. There's been no information come in regarding whether it was a terrorist or somebody that had a mental breakdown or whether it was some kind of planned event. We just don't know. Or soldier on soldier as General Marks mentioned.

So, it's just too soon to know that. As you remember in the Navy shooting here in Washington, they were chasing people that turned out to be not involved in it. There were reports there were two or three other people on the loose. That turned out to be false.

And you just had one shooter in that event. And, you know, the hope is that it's just one shooter in this event and that shooter has been contained or stopped. But we don't know that positively yet.

BURNETT: Right. And I want to let our viewers know that the president of the United States has been briefed on the situation, which is still ongoing and still considered active. The president will be making a statement in just a few moments and as soon as he does we'll bring that to you live.

Here's the statement we have from the Fort Hood public affairs office. I just want to read this to you in full. Fort Hood's directorate of emergency services has an initial a report the shooter is dead but this is unconfirmed. The injured personnel are being transported to Carl R. Darnall Medical Center and other local hospitals. Numerous local law enforcement agencies are in support and on the scene.

The number of injured are not confirmed at this time. No further details are known at this time. The post is currently still on lockdown.

So, very much of an ongoing situation.

Tom, we had seen and not been able to confirm the number of injuries. But you were saying that you heard there could be 15 which may include the shooter who has been killed.

FUENTES: Yes, and I would like to add that in a situation like this, as Evan Perez mentioned earlier, you have kind of a fog of war situation and oftentimes much of the information coming in to a command post or coming in to the headquarters, whether it's at Fort Hood or relayed back to the Pentagon or FBI headquarters, oftentimes the initial reporting coming from the scene is inaccurate. There's just, you know, it's the way it happens that people are reporting things and not quite sure or the hospital may receive information to expect a certain number of casualties and it turns out maybe there are fire or maybe there are more.

So, just like to clarify what I said that that's what I heard but doesn't mean it's true.

BURNETT: I understand, I understand.

General Marks?

MARKS: Erin, to Tom's point exactly is in the military, we always assume that the first report is always wrong, taking that one step forward. And what that means sue have to validate every piece of that information that's coming in before you begin to promulgate and act upon it.

BURNETT: Right. MARKS: So, to Tom's very point he's absolutely spot on. But the initial assessment is what we're hearing right now is provided in extremis, it's a spot report.

BURNETT: Right.

MARKS: There's significant work that needs done and we have to validate every piece of that.

BURNETT: Right. And, of course, you're hearing from Fort Hood themselves and base communication is tough and given the size we're talking about 50,000 plus people.

MARKS: The concerns of the families at the same time you're trying to get to the bottom of what's going on.

BURNETT: Now, let me just ask you, given that the horrible event that what happened here with Nidal Hasan back in 2009 in which he murdered 13 people and tried to murder 32 others. Are you surprised that something like this could happen again?

MARKS: Yes. Yes, I am. The military has learned an immense amount from what we saw took place at Fort Hood in 2009. And I would say that the command climate at a place like Fort Hood and across the military is very attuned to post traumatic stress and the issues associated with a military that has been at war for over a decade and continues to fight in combat today.

BURNETT: Right.

MARKS: So, we're very much attuned to that. But let's not jump to conclusion and we're not. We're not jumping to conclusion and this is soldier on soldier, but it doesn't surprise me that an incident like this when you have a community that's been embroiled in this combat for so long might experience something like this again.

BURNETT: Seth, what is your perspective on this and, again, I want to make sure our viewers know we're awaiting the president of the United States who's going to be talking about this situation any moment now from Chicago -- Seth.

SETH JONES, SPECIALIZES IN COUNTERTERRORISM-: Erin, if you look over the last several years, we had a number of incidents at military bases whether at Fort Hood where we're talking back in 2009, Fort Dix, which was a location of a major terrorist plot, the certain Navy Yard shootings. Military bases have, even when I served in the military and spent a lot of time at U.S. bases in the United States and overseas, they do prepare for this now.

This has become a reality of military bases today which dealing with issues like PTSD, dealing with people who have been as we saw with the Navy Yard distressed about work and being a target of terrorist attacks. They plan for this kind of stuff. They have emergency drills.

So, people on fort hood we can expect are prepared for, to respond, including the families in these locations to an incident like this. They've done the drills.

BURNETT: All right. We're just going to take a brief pause here as we're waiting the comments from the president and continue to work our sources in terms of what's happening with this active shooter situation.

We'll be right back. Our live coverage continues here of the Fort Hood shooting on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news. We're awaiting a statement from President Obama following a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. U.S. officials tell CNN a suspected shooter at the base in Killeen, Texas, is dead. There are multiple injuries.

At this moment we can't confirm for you the number of those injured or their condition. But we do know that emergency crews are on the scene. We do know that those injured individuals have been sent to local area hospitals, including those on the base. Right now, people on the base told to shelter in place. Told to close doors, stay away from windows.

There are more than 40,000 military personnel on that base, plus up to another 10,000 or so civilians. It is the biggest single site employer in the state of Texas and the shooting comes more than four years after Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people at Fort Hood, and attempted to murder 32 more.

I want to bring back our panel. As we have Spider Marks who spent four years living on that base. General Spider Marks of the U.S. Army.

We also have Tom Fuentes, assistant director of -- the former assistant director of the FBI, and we're going to be joined in just a moment by the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

General Marks, let me go to you here. You said something very significant.

After spending so much time on this base, people talk about this base as the scene of that horrific, horrific murder that Nidal Hasan committed at Fort Hood. And you're saying you are surprised that something like this could happen on this base again.

MARKS: I am. I am. Primarily because of the control and the command -- the control procedures and command climate that exists throughout the military and specifically those measures that were instituted post the shooting of Nidal Hasan back in 2009. I am surprised --

(CROSSSTAK)

MARKS: And so, we have an amazing, amazingly (AUDIO GAP). So, I can't jump to any conclusion but I think at some point, we will figure out this may be personal in nature, this probably doesn't include military weapons, this is probably a couple of guys who got out of control and I want got way out of hand real quick because of the access to weapons.

But they are probably not military weapons.

BURNETT: That's an interesting distinction. No, I know you're saying you don't know. I want to emphasize to our viewers we know there are multiple injuries, multiple people shot. We're not yet sure exactly how many.

Tom Fuentes -- Tom, you said you thought that number could be up to 15 which does correlate with other reports I'm seeing out there right now.

FUENTES: Right, Erin. And also, part of the reason for that report is that more than one medical facility was alerted to be receiving possible patients. So, you know, just the preparation of it, it could be over preparation and they're not going to receive as many patients, but the various medical centers have been alerted there may be patients coming to more than one medical facility.

BURNETT: Now --

MARKS: That's routine. That's a routine process that's one place that Tom just talked about. Absolutely again spot on.

Darnell is the hospital there at Fort Hood and I want has all the functionality you would see at any large urban hospital. It's always a matter of routine to alert the other hospitals that are in Bell County, that are in the vicinity of Fort Hood.

BURNETT: Right, right. I do know there's one other hospital that was receiving patients but, again, that's all we know at this time.

I want to bring in Donnie Adams, lieutenant with the Bell County sheriff's office. His department has responded to Fort Hood.

What can you tell us, sir?

DONNIE ADAMS, BELL COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT. (via telephone): Right now still an active shooting situation on post. Post is still locked down. Our deputies along with state troopers are maintaining a perimeter, security situation to maintain the security of the post. Fort Hood is actively looking and engaged in the incident at this time.

BURNETT: And, sir, let me ask you because you say active shooter situation, we've been reporting that as well. We reported that a shooter has been killed, neutralized. To your knowledge, is there just this one shooter and that person has been neutralized?

ADAMS: Well, I cannot confirm that. But even on these situations, you want to make sure that there's no other shooters, even though you may believe you just have one you still treat it as if you have multiple shooters. Do you confirm that you have no other shooters? So, if they have one that they've taken down they still will be active to make sure there's no others.

BURNETT: Well, thank you very much, Lieutenant. We appreciate your time. As we said sheriff's office has been responding to the scene at Fort Hood.

We're going to take a break. We're awaiting the president of the United States to make comments on the shooting situation from Chicago.

Also joining us here OUTFRONT will be the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee for the House, Michael McCaul, with us right after this break with the latest from his briefings.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: All right. Our breaking news coverage continues of the shooting situation in Fort Hood, Texas. You just heard a lieutenant from Bell County sheriff's office saying they're still treating it as an active situation.

Let's get straight to Evan Perez who has some more breaking details -- Evan.

PEREZ: Erin, at this point again, some of the initial reports we're getting from the field, at least that are coming to law enforcement officials here in Washington, indicate that this is not a terrorism incident. Now, again this is something that is early indications. That is because in part they believe that this began as a soldier on soldier incident, some kind of disagreement perhaps between two soldiers. So, this is what led to this incident.

Now, this is again some of the early reports that are being sent up from the field to law enforcement official here in Washington. And that is obviously these are -- the details obviously sometimes change as time goes on and as the officials learn more.

And, you know, as the Bell County sheriff official said just now, they're treating it as an active shooter incident. That doesn't mean that they actually know that there's a second shooter or there's someone else who may pose any harm. This is something that they always do simply because it takes time to clear these buildings, to make sure that there's no other threat present on this base.

And so, they still use the term active shooter because they have to make sure that everything has been cleared before they declare the threat to be over, Erin.

BURNETT: Important to make that distinction. Thank you very much, Evan.

I want to bring in now Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Republican from Texas.

Chairman, thank you for taking the time.

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R), TEXAS: Thanks, Erin. BURNETT: What are you able to tell us? As we've been able to report that there was a shooter here who has been killed, a soldier who shot others. Tom Fuentes, former assistant of the FBI saying perhaps 14 or 15 others.

What more can you tell us?

MCCAUL: Well, I just got briefed on this incident. Fourteen victims, four confirmed dead, including the shooter, possible shooter at large, suspect at large. So, this is very fluid, very ongoing. We don't know the motivations at this time.

I know the Joint Terrorism Task Force has not found any nexus or tie to terrorism, but it's too early to rule that out completely. And as you know, Fort Hood has a history of jihadists trying to attack whether it's Major Nidal Hasan or there's a second plot that was thwarted to kill soldiers at Fort Hood, in addition to many other military bases across the country.

So, we are not ruling out terrorism at this time. But once again a very tragic incidents at Fort Hood, 14 people at least right now reported wounded and four confirmed dead at this point in time.

BURNETT: All right. So you're saying four confirmed dead which is the first, Chairman, that we have heard that. You're saying you're sure of that from the briefing you've gotten.

MCCAUL: Yes. This is from -- well, multiple agencies, including state and federal agencies.

BURNETT: And that obviously brings the total to 18. You're saying the 14 wounded. Do the four dead I guess let me just confirm with you, the four dead include the shooter?

MCCAUL: The four dead does include shooter. The name is Ivan Lopez, although that's not been confirmed at this point in time. They're still running background material on the suspect or on the shooter.

I think what I'm concerned about is there is a possible second shooter out there. That means a conspiracy. And where is he at this point in time.

BURNETT: All right. Chairman McCaul, thank you very much. I just want to make sure again we haven't confirmed the Ivan Lopez name of the shooter. But again that's the latest that the chairman has from his briefings, obviously significant developments there. We have not yet confirmed them.

But I want to make sure that we are updating you with the latest of what Chairman McCaul said he was briefed on, that there were four confirmed dead, one of which is the shooter, 14 additional people injured at the shooting at Fort Hood and the name of the shooter which he has been briefed on but not yet confirmed by CNN, I want to emphasize this, is a soldier named Ivan Lopez.

Our breaking news coverage of the shooting continues with John Berman after this break.