that took down the soldier who was standing guard outside of that war memorial, which was built to memorialize world war i participants from the canadian military and gone on to be a real national symbol of all of those who lost their lives fighting, defending canada. >> this is already a country on edge what reported from earlier in the week. we're watching with along with our colleagues from "happening now." breaking coverage continues. jon: fox news alert. a scary situation underway in ottawa. shootingings outside of canadian parliament building. perhaps inside as well. a soldier with canadian force was shot at the national war memorial in ottawa. gunfire also inside of the halls of parliament this is happening now. good morning to you. i'm jon scott. shannon: i'm shannon bream in for jenna lee. police confirm they had a call

at 9:52 this morning with reports of shots fired. the gunman reportedly ran toward parliament hill which is now underlockdown. jon: joining us, carl adams, former royal canadian mounted police. our understanding that several members about parliament have tweeted out, that the gunman was shot and killed. do you have any further confirmation of that? >> no, i don't. the information is still sketchy coming from all different sources but nothing that i have seen right now has indicated that the shooter has been shot. jon: this comes just two days after a couple of canadian military members were run down and one of them killed by, by somebody who had apparently a terrorist sympathies. is there any indication that those, these two events are related? >> there is no indication of that right now. i'm sure the rcmp system and

other police services will look into all the information that comes out regarding the incident. jon: typically how well-guarded is the parliament building? >> well the parliament building is very well-guarded. i'm not sure about the information about anyone getting inside. certainly there are both the rcmp and the ottawa police that do the policing around the parliament buildings. jon: tell us about the war memorial and what typically would transpire there. we understand that a soldier or a person in uniform was the first of those shot. >> there is always a guard at the war memorial which is, as you know, very close to the parliament, that building this is an area where on remembrance day there is a big ceremony and commemorating our past wars and celebrateing our armed forces.

jon: we understand that canada had just raised its terror threat level from low to medium. is that as a result of the incident that described two days ago when the two soldiers were run over? we just had some of the video of the car that apparently had run over those two soldiers. one of them was killed? is that the reason for the elevation of the threat level? >> i certainly can't comment on that. you know, i'm a retired member of the rcmp so i'm not privy to a lot of that information. what i did hear what everybody else heard through the news that the threat level was raised. jon: yeah. so you're fairly confident there will be, or there has already been a significant response from the mps, the rcmp members who guard parliament as well as the ottawa police. >> oh, absolutely. i know that there is, there are many members of the rcmp that

are in the area. there is also where the headquarters of the rcmp is in the ottawa area. we certainly have sufficient numbers of people both with the rcmp and ottawa police that will respond to this. jon: howard adams, former rcmp member, thank you very much for joining us. stick with us, if you would. we have global news. we are able to listen to their coverage of this situation there at this parliament or outside the parliament building in ottawa where shots have been fired. let's listen in to what they have at this moment. >> bob zimmer as well as ontario mp saying he saw the shooter shot by police. what you're looking at here paramedics responding to the initial shooting of the soldier. and ottawa police as well. we're now being told by ottawa police that there is no suspect in custody. i don't know if that means in addition to the reports that a

gunman has been shot because of course they're concerned as it is, still, quote, unquote, an active shooting as they continue to look for possible shooters. we can also tell you that canadian forces bases around the country security has been beefed up. we know for a fact here in ontario. let's bring in our chief political correspondent tom clark who knows place very well. of course we're talking about parliament hill. you are now right outside at the war memorial, tom, is that correct? >> yeah. he police haveppening is that been clearing has been moving steadily away from parliament hill. for those of you who know ottawa, i'm sort of on the other side so that road that runs in front of parliament hill has been completely cleared as a number of roads around the area and the cordon area is getting larger. we're told the area around 24 sussex drive, which is the

residence of the prime minister, all traffic is being diverted away from there. so that is secure area at this point. we're far enough away that we're not necessarily hearing exactly what's going on although a few minutes ago we did hear police closer to parliament hill yelling, stop where you are, stop where you are. that may be nothing more than just a pedestrian getting in the wrong place at the wrong time. however, i was talking to mp john mckay. he is a liberal. he was in the center block, just taking off his vote to go into caucus meetings because wednesday is caucus meeting in ottawa. he said as he was taking off his coat he heard 10 gunshots go off. didn't know what they were. thought maybe it was construction. he was talking to a woman in the parliamentary library, who said, got a good look at the gunman, who said he was wearing a hoodie, walking down the hall of honor. let me try to explain that for you and put it into context. the library of parliament is at one end of a hallway.

the at other end of the hallway is the main entrance to the parliament buildings. halfway between those two points are rooms where there is weekly caucus meeting of the conservative party and the ndp the way this woman described it the gunman literally walked down that hall within feet of those two caucus meetings underway at the time. that was an eyewitness report. john mckay himself said that after the shots were fired, they were cleared. construction workers said get down behind a monument because if the shooter is inside and shooting outside, you best have a mon you between you and the shooter. -- monument between you and the shooter. they were finally moved from parliament hill. the situation is very tense. the police are very tense. at the moment we're not being moved further back. if you have a minute, let me bring in john mckay, the man i was just talking about. hi. mr. mckay, i was talking about what you went through but i want to talk a little bit about the woman who you talked to at the

library of parliament. >> yeah. >> and the indication that maybe this gunman got a whole lot closer than we think to the caucuses of both the government and the ndp? >> yeah. and, bear in mind, i'm in fact repeating what she said so i can't be the person that verifies the information but what she said to me was that she was in the parliament, inside the library of parliament. she could see an individual through the stained-glass doors. she could see that he was short, he was wearing a hoodie and that he had, she said the butt of a rifle. that is how she described it. she got out. that is the way she described it to us. >> you and i both know that hallway. if you're coming into the parliament buildings and you can see somebody from the library of parliament, they have to have been very close to the caucus rooms of both the government and the ndp? >> as you know, tom, in order to be able to get to the position that you are in front of the doors of the library of parliament you have to have

walked down the hall of honor. as you walk down the hall of honor on the right-hand side is the ndp caucus. on the left-hand side is the conservative caucus. i don't even want to think about somebody with a rifle walking down the hall of honor between the two major caucuses of the parliament of canada. >> john, when you first heard, and i think you told me you heard about 10 round being fired. >> yeah. >> more or less. >> yeah. >> describe to me the scene right after that shooting. whats being said, what did the guards say, what did they do? >> it was just sort of like a pop, pop, pop and my initial reaction was -- jon: you're watching the coverage of global news in canada of, the strange and violent event this morning. apparently just outside and even inside the canadian parliament building where a number of shots have been fired. you're looking right now at the war memorial just outside the parliament building. apparently a man in a

light-colored hoodie puld up in a car with no license plates on it, had a rifle in his hand, opened fire on one of the guards who was there at the war memorial, and that is the guard who is apparently now on the ground. he has been attended to by paramedics. we saw them doing cpr moments ago. the status of that guard and his or her health we do not absolutely know. this person with a rifle apparently ran inside the canadian parliament building there. and again what happened from there, what transpired from there, we do not know. that is what we're hearing. that's why we're listening into global news coverage. we do know that stephen harper, the canadian prime minister, is safe. he is not anywhere near parliament hill at this time but how many others might have been shot we just simply do not know at this point. shannon: yeah, we're continuing to listen in and hear different accounts what is going on, what has transpired but we are hearing some things that seep

pretty consistent from the witness accounts that have come forward as you recapped john. joining us on the phone, live on the scene or nearby, wgn reporter christopher gully. what can you tell us from your vantage point, what you're hearing? >> there is speculation there may be more than one gunman involved and the initial gunman who opened fire at the war memorial and shot the soldier and went to parliament hill is still at large. so in the last few minutes, the royal canadian mounted police have not only locked down parliament hill and pretty much locked downtown town ottawa. so that affects schools, government buildings, city hall, shopping malls, that sort of thing. shannon: christopher, let me ask you about, i'm thinking by contrast the u.s. capitol. we have several different police forces in addition to the metropolitan police in washington, d.c. is that the case there? is there a special force that protects parliament? or is it all part of rcmp?

>> so rcmp would protect the parliamentary precinct outside the buildings. inside the buildings there are two security forces. there is a security force for the senate and there is a security force for the house of commons. and they're the ones inside of the building. they can invite other police forces such as the rcmp into the building but they are primarily responsible for inside the buildings themselves. shannon: and i would imagine this is something they have planned for, they have drilled for. and, you know, of course, with such an important target to protect have been through this numerous times and have probably activated whatever drill structure they had in place? >> i would imagine so. i mean, i think we got a head's up last week from the public safety minister, stephen blaineey, the equivalent of the homeland security secretary in the u.s., who talked about an imminent security, terrorism-related security threat and we've seen that play out this week alone. i mean two days ago in quebec

where this guy ran down two soldiers. one died and he himself was shot just two days ago. so -- shannon: christopher -- >> whatever, you know the threat is coming to fruition. shannon: just to clarify then, the raising of the threat level was prior to the incident involving the car running down the two canadian military folks? >> that's correct. yeah. you see, i guess the coincidences today, parliament would be debate tougher terrorism-related legislation. now where that's at, i'm assuming parliamentary business it has been suspended until this whole issue is resolved. shannon: okay. well we understand that threat level was based on chatter, potential terrorist chatter that canadian authorities had been hearing. so it seems to confirm that their suspicions were likely on, that something was afoot. >> correct, it seems so. there was also reports from the u.s. as well that canada, threat

levels in canada increased significantly. jon: also worth noting, christopher, stephen harper, the prime minister, was supposed to hold a meeting and perhaps it would still take place today but was supposed to make a public appearance at 2:45 this afternoon with malala jews seven that is -- youssef, pakistani girl i yee that was shot in attempted murder by the taliban who do knot like the idea of girls going to school. she survived obviously and, recently won the nobel peace prize. canada's prime minister was to make this appearance with her today. whether any of this is related is only speculation at this point but it certainly is interesting timing. >> well you know just, jon, just to add to that, she was also been named an honorary canadian citizen. so she is just one of a handful of people historically who have

been afforded that honor. >> let me go back to one thing you said at the very beginning of your report which is that there is the possibility that there is more than one gunman involved here? >> that's what we're hearing there may be one, one other. so there's no, i guess the questions remain as to how many people are involved in this attack. and it is now being considered a terrorist attack on parliament hill. and secondly where the initial gunman is who shot the soldier. the other interesting thing, whoever is behind this, if it is a coordinated attack, they're targeting soldiers. in quebec two soldiers. today, another soldier, guarding the national war memorial. so that, that's an interesting and disturbing trend at the same time. >> the first reporting of shots just came in about 23 minutes ago on parliament hill there in canada. that's where you are seeing this

footage from. shannon: and the questions about how many may be involved, there are, more and more alleged witness accounts that are surfacing now, that this car pulled up without plates on it. some witnesses, witnesses are saying they saw two individuals jump from the car. christopher, i know that you've been saying you know, it is kind of unknown at this point. are you hearing anything similar? some witnesses now saying there were two who jumped from that car? >> i'm hearing that and i'm hear that a bystander retrieved a cell phone from the war memorial. the car was, the car was surrounded by rcmp and people, when this broke down, when reporters rushed to the scene, police kept all of us at bay, away from it. shannon: so -- >> for fear of, you know, explosives or something in the vehicle. shannon: exactly. we've seen in some of these bombings, primarily in the middle east. not saying this is a bombing but

in middle eastern bombings so often there is secondary wave, secondary attack. we can imagine the car sitting there is of great concern to the authorities on the scene as well as all of on lookers. >> yeah, absolutely. it is not only parliament hill under siege now. it is really a the mare of ottawa, the cap toll is under siege, certainly in the downtown core. people have been told to leave, evacuate buildings, go home. so city hall, the rito center, which is a popular tourist attraction, a shopping mall, across the street from the war memorial was evacuated. government buildings were evacuated. the prime minister was put into a safe room nearby. you know, there is, there is, you talked about contingency plans. well, there is a plan to, in instances like these to move the prime minister. there is underground tunnel from center block on parliament hill to his office building which is

across the street from parliament hill. he is not there at the moment. the other thing that, i should point out is that police have asked people not to tweet photos of their movements at this point. so, they have told people to stay away from twitter. shannon: yeah. of and unfortunately it is a place that information flows in moments like this. some of it accurate. some of it not. >> exactly. exactly. so it is a story definitely in progress right now and who knows how this will shape up over the next hour or two. >> we are getting reports, and again this comes also from global tv, christopher, that there have been shots fired near the loria hotel. i understand that is few minutes away from capitol hill? if that is taking place, perhaps, there is some kind of a coordinated attack underway here? >> well, jon, i heard of that as well. the shadow luria hotel, literally down the block from

parliament hill. it is building right next to the parliamentary precinct. i heard those reports as well but reporters on scene at the hotel have said they never heard anything. so, we're now in a period of confusion where there is a lot of reports that are, that are accurate and those that are not. jon: right. >> and then just because it is breaking by the second here, it is hard to confirm anything. jon: also the case, that gunshots in an urban area, obviously very loud. they can echo off buildings. shots appear to come from places where they weren't actually fired. so that is, that bears repeating. we need to treat this with an abundance of caution. reports from the nearby hotel could simply have been referring to shots to the, to original shots that were fired obviously on parliament hill? >> correct. initially when the gunman approached parliament hill there is also confusion as to what transpired. evidently i mentioned earlier, the house of commons security,

we're told tried to prevent this guy from entering but somehow he entered the building. there were reports of a ratat shots being fired inside the building itself. you talked earlier to liberal member of parliament john mckay who was actually there. so again it's going to take a bit of time to find out what's fact and what's fiction here. >> yeah. there are additional reports coming in, citing local media there, saying that they believe that a shooter is down. we have independently confirmed that but there is tweeting that a sighting, local media there in ottawa. christopher are you hearing anything along those lines or anything that can confirm or dispel that at this point? >> shannon, i heard that about 15 minutes ago and it was quickly dismissed. so it is still largely unconfirmed. shannon: okay. let's bring in now laura engle.

stay with us, christopher. >> sure. shannon: live in the new york newsroom. monitoring a lot of local media, radio and television. laura be what have you been able to pick up at this point? >> shannon, we're listening to the local radio station, 1310 news radio in ottawa, listening to riveting accounts of one reporter on the scene. one reporter actually at parliament hill on assignment when all this was going down, his name is cormac mcsweeney in lockdown. he was in the rove tuned today when the gunfire erupted in his section. he said the gunfire was just inside of the door of parliament hill. he all of sudden heard screams of. he heard people running up steps. started running with the crowd. guards inside with gun dawns. this is reports of a caucus day which you said, which calls for for mps anyway. a lot of mps on the way at the time. attack. he was with a global tv soundman. the global tv soundman told him

he saw a man looked to be middle-aged, carrying a long barrel gun, made it through the doors a and first one to fryer a shot. that is when security officials came in in according to the local reporter who was in parliament hill when this happened. he was asked what did it down like? he said it sounded like they were single gunshots. it was not an automatic weapon. he is currently in lockdown. the anchors there at the local radio station checking in with him and reporting of course, very chaotic scene. we also want to make mention that the ottawa police media sending out a tweet, all hands on deck at this point as you can imagine. they're closing all the police stations, all ottawa police stations are closed to the public. no public services are available until further notice. and we continue to monitor whatever action may be happening at that hotel, the chateau luria. and we are waiting to get more information on that. shannon: laura, thank you very much. keep us updated as you pick up anything new that we're able to confirm any rumors we're hearing

or dispel them as well. laura, thanks. jon: david gerrau who covers ottawa for the cbc he is able to join us on the phone. david, what the is latest you can tell us? >> i can confirm there is one gunman dead at parliament hill. the news came in a couple of minutes ago. it is confirmed as you mentioned. lots of rumors circulating over the morning whether or not that was in fact the case. but that is indeed the case now. the other thing we're still not too sure about there may be one more person still at large. so far not confirmed by police but essentially what we're looking at right now. jon: obviously if there is at least one more person there is some kind of a coordinated attack, even though it may be relatively small scale, attack ? >> that is it. hard to say whether the man that shot the soldier at the war memorial is the same one who actually entered parliament hill later on. sounds like there are some

similarities as far as witness accounts go. we're not really certain whether or not he was the only one involved in this. he was apparently, looks like taken down in parliament hill. parliament hill still in lockdown right now along with the rest of downtown ottawa as one of your earlier callers mentioned. hotels, schools, malls. even our own building here at the cbc we're being told to stay inside right now and just wait out, you know the police, as they try to continue with their investigation. jon: we have some video on our screen right now of what that, i guess, the center hall of your parliament building looks like and i have to say that, you know, the access looks to be fairly easy. can you describe what would normally be, how difficult normally would it be for somebody to walk in to that building whether they had a weapon or not? >> you know, it really, would really depend on the day and i would imagine on a stay like

today where you're dealing with members about parliament being there but not necessarily expecting a lot of the public to be there, they really have, you know a couple of rcmp officers out on the front lawn that would prevent someone from getting in. of course a couple of security guard inside but how quickly they would be able to react or even just be aware of what was going on, i think everyone was so surprised when the shooting happened that the war memorial that it left everyone in shock. whether or not that trickled down to police officers and security guard at parliament hill i'm not too sure. certainly looks like they took some quick action. whether or not they were able to prevent the guy from getting further in without any sort of without them being able to stop them hard to say. certainly sounds like some of the folks there in the building had first-hand eyes on what was going on. jon: david, we're in a situation where on the west coast some folks are just waking up, tuning in. maybe you can take us back to what started about 35 minutes ago and just kind of help us

recap what we know about what has taken place in ottawa. >> sure. it is over an hour now. it happened closer to 10:00. i was getting ready to do my 10:00 news set. all of sudden we had great furor in the newsroom and reporters running by. we quickly found out that a soldier was shot at the ottawa war memorial. witnesses say they watch ad man with long dark hair, wearing a calf and scarf walk up to the war memorial with a gun of some sort, we assume it was rifle. he walked up to the one of the soldiers standing guard and shot him in the chest. he escaped into the car. either that he was one that showed up at parliament hill. there are other rumors of someone escaping on a motorcycle. so we're sure how that actually all trickled down. but as i did mention, there is confirmation now that one person is dead inside of the parliament buildings and it looks like

police may still be on the lookout for at least one, perhaps two other people. jon: there are multiple shooting locations though. you can definitely confirm that? >> yes. there would be at the war memorial to begin with and then, inside parliament as well. so two separate location. located relatively close to one another. there is probably 500 meters separating war memorial from the front doors of parliament. shannon: what we're hearing in a tweet attributed officially to ottawa police saying there are several shooting incidents in downtown ottawa. that could mean the ones that you referenced that we heard as well, potentially at a hotel nearby. are you hearing anything more about beyond the war memorial and at parliament hill itself. >> those ones people talked about happening at the hotel, the hotel is directly across the street from the war memorial. >> okay. >> i would imagine people probably thought they were related to the hotel. i haven't heard there is

anything specifically at the hotel but i imagine that is where some confusion has come from. shannon: too, jon noted earlier you can hear ricocheting. when you're in urban situation gunfire can sound very different. some of that could be law enforcement as well out in full force there. >> that's right. certainly doesn't sound like any law enforcement was firing shots at the war memorial because certainly at that time of the day would have been the two soldiers standing guard right in front of the memorial, surrounded essentially by tourists walking by. there is no other real security presence at that location at that time of the day. so it sound like anybody that was there would certainly not have been ready to be able to step in to provide any sort of help, other than certainly lending a hand as far as giving some first aid to the soldier that was shot. and it certainly sound like witnesses that were there on that location along with people in the area, diving for cover amount very chaotic scene as the shots rang out.

a lot of concern. ottawa is a very, very safe city. we do not see things like this. i know people always say, you know very typical thing we get in the media, when we cover certain events. people are, i'm so surprised. i can't imagine it would ever happen here. i can say there is probably a lot of people saying that right now because this is a very safe city and it is completely out of the ordinary. it has thrown everyone for a loop. shannon: thank you, david. thanks for updating there. if you stand business, as you get more please let us know. jon? jon: we want to bring into the conversation, mark steyn, fame must voice for fox news viewers and syndicated author and as well. mark, originally from canada. what do you think is going on in your own country there. >> as we heard earlier. this is not like washington. it is a very relaxed capitol city. we've been talking about the different locations. they are next door to each

other. shadow lauria is close to parliament and across from the national war memorial. the national war memorial is generally guarded by one or two soldiers there in a ceremonial role. you would not expect, they're not like princess a patricians fighting in afghanistan. you don't expect this kind of thing of the canadian parliament is very relaxed building to stroll into. the prime minister's office is in the building across the street. people walk across the green back and forth. it is complete opposite from congress, from the white house. there is not a kind of homeland security mentality there. i was in ottawa a couple months ago and after dinner i strolled through the streets with a senior cabinet minister. just the two of us. no entrepreneur. no motorcade -- entourage. it is a tragedy one consequence of this, that will all be lost

and a kind of department of homeland security mode will settle on hither to a lovely and relaxed capitol city. jon: let me recap for our viewers who might be just joining us. sometime in the last 90 minutes or so, we're getting conflicting reports exactly what time this all started but sometime in the last 90 minutes or so, a gunman apparently jumped out of a car outside the war memorial in ottawa. there are at least two sir moan y'all guard who stand duty there, stand watch at canada's war memorial. one of them was apparently shot in the chest. we saw first-responders giving that person first aid, cpr and so forth. you can see helicopters in the air now. there were shots fired inside of the parliament building. canadian police, ottawa police are saying there are multiple shooting locations. as you can imagine there are a lot of rumors flying around.

we try not to indull in rumors here. we do know according to police there are multiple shooting locations in ottawa. the young pakistani girl shot in the head by the taliban and who recently received the nobel peace prize for her writings and her work, she was to meet with stephen harper, the canadian prime minister today. is that likely to be a tie here or do you think this is completely random, the timing? >> i think it's a provocation to a certain segment in canadian society in the sense there are many members of the muslim community who loathe that brave young lady and who would regard the canadian prime minister essentially the government of canada giving canadian citizenship. that is something very rarely done. they regard that as a great insult.

we've had two incidents here in basically 48 hours. a guy was run down, and two soldiers were run down where the war military college is. that is equivalent to the u.s. naval academy in annapolis. if you want to kill soldiers you go there, a garrison town. it is where the military college is. you run those soldiers down. one of them is dead. if you wanted to kill more soldiers where would you go? you go to the national war memorial. it's a big downtown tourist attraction. it honors canadian dead in all wars. opened by king george vi, the queen's father. that is one place you can guaranty you will find a soldier, if you're looking for a soldier. two incidents in 48 hours where people killed soldiers in places where it is known that soldiers will be 24 hours a day.

in canadian terms, if it is a coincidence, it is one the most bizarre and freakish coincidences in modern canadian history. shannon: mark, it comes at a time just after a terror threat level was raised there. authorities having said there was increased chatter, potentially with terror groups who wanted to carry out some kind of attraction -- attacks or cause trouble there. that happened prior to the incident involving the car that ran into the two soldiers. we confirmed they knew there was chatter. let me ask you, just recently been there and being our original home, tell us about anything you have been able to detect as far as tensions there between those, if this turns out something related to terrorism, those segments of the society as they have these conversations about threats there, different parts of the community, how they coexist, how they deal with

differentiating themselves from somethingthose who would carry out something like this. >> i think shannon, statistics with canadians are not gun owning society, own long guns at higher rate than americans do. entirely possible nothing to do with isis or jihad or anything like that. having said that that many canadians as well as minneapolis have gone on to fight with isis. the royal canadian mounted police disrupt ad plot where 19 people in toronto were plotting to seize parliament and behead the prime minister. people thought that was a kind of a joke you know, because they nipped it in the bud. all these stories, idea of anybody wanting to seize parliament and behead the canadian prime minister live on television, all these stories

seem like a joke, until, when they're stopped in time and they're no longer a joke when they manage to break through and actually happen. who is to know that the kind of fellows who thought that plot was such a great idea in 2006, don't think it is still a great thing to do in 2014. the prime minister's office is, is basically a two-minute walk from the front steps of parliament and it's not like, if you take the most boring u.s. department of paperwork building in washington, that's in kind of permanent lockdown. you have to give your social security number, have to give everything to get in there. it is not like that to get in the prime minister's office in canada. these fellows are motivated and want to do it. because they were caught eight years ago doesn't mean they have given up. jon: we have reported that prime minister stephen harper is safe,

not near parliament hill at this time. this was a day when members of parliament were to gather to caucus, to talk about their votes and how they feel about numbers of issues. whether that is related to the fact that these assailants, because apparently there is more than one, these assailants decided to strike today we do not know at this point. and, mark, just to your point, if you had told americans 15 years or so ago that a bunch of guys with box cutters would be able to hijack four airplanes and fly emtheme into, some of the most significant buildings in this country and kill thousands of people, i think people might have laughed you off. >> yeah. jon: terrorism has this way of morphing and changing our attitudes what is capable and how low the human condition can actually go. >> well you're right about that, jon. if you recall, the 9/11 guys, the week before it, they were, they were all in these lap

dancing clubs up and down the east coast where the girls complained they were lousy tippers and all rest of it. you imagine if those fellows were stopped the day before, people would have thought it was a joke. couldn't understand why we would make a fuss about an about of losers sitting in strip clubs and not knowing enough to tip girls to tuck a $5 bill in the g-string rather than a dollar bill. and it is exactly the same here. all these people seem like jokes until they pull it off. and just like the fellow running over the guys in st. john, targeting soldiers, these guys targeting soldiers, the fellows that beheaded rigby in the streets of london just a year ago, they were looking for soldiers to kill. there are all kinds much people now who think isis is the coolest soccer team on the planet. they're seeing what isis are doing in syria and iraq and wouldn't it be cool to try to pull off something like that at

home? that is an undercurrent to what is going on. jon: one of the stories we were, we may have have a chance to bring the audience today, how three teenage girls from colorado were arrested go over and join isis in syria. >> exactly. jon: what a time we live in. mark steyn, an author and columnist, it is good of you to join us. thanks for bringing you your perspective from your home country. >> thanks, jon. thanks, shannon. shannon: jon, to your point, so much social media these days being used to bring young recruits in. making it look like cool thing. next thing to do. >> it is said that isis is winning the social media war. shannon: very savvy. bring in rod wheeler, former d.c. homicide detective, fox news contributor. rod, i understand you may have had communications with folks in canada who can shed a little more light on what we may know at this point. >> exactly. what they have been able to do, shannon, is confirm some of the information that we already talked about.

as a matter of fact, i have a friend who is with the ottawa police department and i texted him a few minutes ago. here is what he replied back. one down in, one down in the location there and may be one more on the loose. he said, ird has been deployed. ird is their immediate response deployment unit which is similar to our swat units in the d.c., here in the united states. so they are possibly looking for a second suspect. he said they're not sure if they have one yet but several buildings are still on lockdown until they can clear those buildings. shannon: apparently ottawa police now we're being told are confirming three separate shooting incidents and multiple suspects. >> that's right. the reason -- jon: rod, if you stick with us for a moment. we want to go to global television news. we'll tell you, the person they're talking with, is a cameraman who apparently witnessed much of this. let's listen. >> hallway where the cabinet meetings or the caucus meeting is and some of the plain

clothessed guards there already pulled out their guns. he has a gun. he said go downstairs by the stairwell to the bottom floor of parliament and i ran there. then i heard multiple shots. at first i thought it was one or two. but now i'm hearing footage and i do remember it was more than one. and [inaudible] went to the back of the building. i got a shot of my i phone of the prime minister's motorcade moving to that point. not sure if he was in there or they were getting him but, then i stood around for a few minutes, tried to get out. there was construction. so i couldn't really leave. they had blocked it off. and guard said come in. they locked down in a room. now we were in a room and there were 50 of us locked down. >> you are now locked down you said with 50 other people. we should say the scene you're

now live something probably repeated in many rooms parliament hill. in fact, probably much of downtown ottawa. there was a security alert, rob, that was sent to the entire parliament buildings that basically says, and i'm going to read it to you here, all buildings are in lockdown. stay in your office with doors locked and away from windows. if your doors do not lock, find a way to barricade a door. do not open the door under any circumstances. that some coulding from circumstances on parliament hill? rob, is your door locked? is there anyone in charge? do you have a security official with you? >> we're sort of in like a conference room and the first door is open right now because there is, some chairs out there and, there is a phone. but, outside of that there is about seven or eight, maybe 10 security guard in the front of that. so i'm hoping that we are safe in here. they told us to stay away from windows. last i heard, through one of the senators who is in here with me about 20 minutes ago that some

shots were heard outside of the chateau lauria, which is the fairmont hotel here in ottawa. there are 50 of us here. there are 50 of us, staffers, mps, senators. we're all just standing. >> are there other witnesses like you who saw what went down? >> i have spoken to a few people here. nobody saw anything from what i remember but i talked to some mps who heard the shots and it was right next to the room they were meeting in. and they all actually thought, because there were multiple shots being fired, they thought they were heading in and coming in. and, they thought they were going to come through the doors at any point. >> rob, stand by. that is a scam ran man were global who was on parliament hill -- cameraman. this is wednesday, caucus day, very busy lots of mps, and lots of activity on parliament hill when this shooting --

jon: live coverage we're able to bring you from global news as they cover the situation. a lot of confusion what is going on in ottawa. we do know that there are multiple locations, at least more than one shooter. perhaps two shooters involved in an attack this morning that began at war memorial just outside of the parliament building. one soldier was shot there. we don't know the outcome of that shooting. we saw that there were first-responders there providing cpr to that soldier. that soldierer has been taken away and we don't know his or her health situation. joining us now on the phone, we spoke to david gerau earlier, he is back with us, the ottawa reporter for the canadian broadcasting corporation. david, we just heard in that global news report that the prime minister's motorcade was seen leaving. whether the prime was in it or not we don't know. but we do know that prime

minister harper is safe. >> that's correct. yeah, he was on the hill at the time but he was rushed away to a secure location. unfortunately the same can not be said for a lot of other folks working inside of parliament hill at the time when the shooter did enter there and started firing shots. we of course heard that people, heard shots outside of their doors, locking doors quickly. hearing lots of other action in the hallway. many people reporting up to two dozen shots fired. and as you mentioned, right now one man has been confirmed dead, killed inside of canada's parliament building. his death followed several shots fired inside of the halls of the building and police continue to be on the lookout for perhaps, one, two, maybe even three more people at this point, we're not really sure but looks like police and other officials assume there is more than one person that was at work here. now earlier on you've mentioned cruise cruise. yousufzai. that ceremony was going to be

happening today but it would happen in toronto. i'm not sure whether that makes much of a difference whether symbolic i that people would have done that. i want to make sure you guys were aware that ceremony is happening in toronto which is four hours by car from here. jon: thanks for the clarification. i was under the assumption that was happening in ottawa. malala yousufzai, the young afghan girl shot by the taliban for her advocacy of the education of girls. she recently won the nobel peace prize and will be receiving honorary canadian citizenship today. >> yes, that's correct. shannon: can i get perspective from you, we hear confirmed by ottawa police, confirmed from multiple locations by ottawa police multiple suspects. this sound like it is all close in location. give us perspective on the hotel has been mentioned orange parliament hill and the war

memorial in addition to the nearby mall. rodo center mall. >> yes, all those areas would be within a few hundred meters of each other with the memorial being in the center. if you can imagine, across pretty much directly across the street from the war memorial is the chateau fairmont. and then about another 300 meters to the east would be where the mall would be. then probably about 400 meters, kind of northwest to get to parliament some that war memorial would have been right in the middle of it and that is, very fortunate that actually no tourists were caught up in this because that is a very popular tourist attraction and right across the street from there is where a lot of tourists get into the double-decker buses to start heading on tours around the city. there likely would be a lot of people around at the time. one of our own producers was walking to work going past the site when he heard shots ring

out. a lot of other people he dove down to the ground and chaos in the scene. looks like the soldier was only one hit in this case before the gunman escaped in the car of the whether or not this is came gunman that showed up in a car at parliament hill and burst through the doors, we don't know that certainly yet. it may have been one of the other guys, that police say they are continuing to look for right now. shannon: can you also seat the scene, with regard to, we heard the area described as being very, very different than we have in washington, d.c. where i live and work most of the time, where it is impossible to someplaces have pedestrian traffic. certainly a lot of places car traffic, there is heavy security and physical barriers to nearly every entrance to every building. i understand it sound like parliament hill is very different. >> oh, no. parliament hill is wide open. you have a fence with openings along the outside, kind of old style wrought iron fence with openings that allow, tourists to walk through and then up to the

peace flame which lies directly in front of parliament hill. from there you can walk straight up to the front doors. so beyond the relatively small police presence, they have there on a day-to-day basis, at least outside of, outside of parliament, there is really not a lot of other security there, so, you know, it is not like they would have had to jump a wall or tried to avoid detection or anything like that. i think there are some tourist there is all the time, people wandering around i think this caught certainly everyone off-guard. jon: we're getting word that the u.s. embassy in ottawa is on lockdown. that is a precaution, pretty typical in a situation of this kind. the embassy not too far from parliament hill. >> no, very close, actually, within a couple of blocks. probably two blocks away from parliament hill. so that is no surprise. jon: right. they have been told, american citizens there, have been told nobody is going in. nobody is going out. again a precaution there are to the u.s. embassy in oawa, on

lock down after this strange series of shootings that is still very much under investigation. as you see on the left of your screen, police with their weapons drawn still in a defensive crouch. it is not at all clear that this situation is over although, as we just heard, it is believed that the, it is confirmed in fact that the one shooter inside of the parliament building has been shot and killed. multiple shots fired. we don't know whether those came from the gunman or the response to the gunman. >> that's right. well, it, right now what happened inside of parliament is certainly only known to those inside. you were talking to the camera guy earlier. sound like as soon as shots getting fired people were ducking for cover quickly. people are not exactly sure what this guy looks like now. jon: i'm struck by, you know, looking at some of the officers

that you have outside, and we have some on the screen now, yeah, they have bulletproof vests on it appears but other than that fairly minimal equipment for this kind of thing. no helmets. no shields. this is not particularly heavily armed force, david i think it is fair to say. >> i would imagine people you're seeing right now are just likely other ottawa police officers that were called in to lend a hand. we have 20, 30 a block away from here up closer to the war memorial, waiting if they're called upon to help out. i imagine they're leaving a lot of heavy lifting to the ottawa s.w.a.t. team. jon: david gerow, from cbc, ottawa reporter. thank you for the information. >> you're welcome. shannon: we have been talking about laura engle. she is monitoring a lot of local media and giving us what she is hearing. she is live in the newsroom in new york. laura, what is the new evident. >> we've been listening to local

radio station 1310 and the reporters on the sustain scene and one who is still in the lockdown status on parliament hill who gave a pretty dramatic interpretation what he saw and heard when all of this went down. a couple of updates. you're mentioning schools on lockdown in the area. there were a couple field trips for schoolchildren. obviously that was canceled. the bridges around the area are closed. the government is in lockdown. the malls as well. police, what's happening on twitter right now, the local policee are urging people not to tweet locations of police officers and well, you can see there, a live feed of where we can see them. but they are obviously scattered throughout the area but people are saying please do not tweet their locations. one eyewitness, who was inside of parliament described the gunman that he saw coming in wearing a mask. police are reportedly evacuating, this is according to the ottawa citizen, a major hill park. we hear that is a park behind that hotel you guys have been

talk about behind the chateau lauria. one soldier was hit. we have learned he is at the local hospital. we're making calls to get update on his status. we'll monitor what the locals are saying. we'll bring you more in the newsroom. shannon. shannon: laura, thank you very much. we're hearing too from our capitol hill producer chad pergram, who recently traveled in that area, talking about what a wide open space it is. he said they stayed at the hotel there, the chateau lauria right there in proximity. it is right next to parliament. chad covers capitol hill. he knows better than the rest of just what an incredible security parameter there is, buffer there is there. something we have to go through every single day to work on the hill. chad says it is so much different there on parliament hill as we've been discussing. there is basic metal detectors

and security. he confirmed that from his travels. all the spots are very near each other and very much wide open and pedestrian friendly. jon: let's take you back a couple of hours when this all started apparently with a gunman who jumped out of a car at the war memorial just outside of the parliament building in ottawa, canada. the opened fire on two ceremonial guard who were there, hitting at least one of them. that person has been given cpr. we don't know his or her condition. apparently the gunman jumped back into the car. it was not long after that shots were fired inside of the canadian parliament building, in this era which just about everybody is carrying a tv camera in his pocket. some of this was caught on video. we'll play that for you now. >> [shouting ♪. gun gun. [gunfire]

jon: you can hear the echoes of those shots. stone floor, stonewalls. obviously a cavern news echoing chamber. not possible to know how many shots were fired. some witnesses said just a couple. others described dozens of shots. we understand that the gunman who entered the parliament building, that gunman is dead. we don't know whether it is the same gunman who fired shots outside of the war memorial and apparently took down that one soldier or military member who was standing ceremonial guard there. shannon: you can see the response there. we've got, you know, the police saying stay away from windows, from rooftops, anything in that area. you can see them with their bulletproof vests on, heavily armed. going through that area we understand with armored vehicles

well, just urging pedestrians and those that work and live in the area, to stay away from any potential areas which they could be a target. joining us on the phone from the scene, grn reporter christopher gooly. we talked to you a little bit earlier. what is the like at the scene where you are? >> it appears police are looking for multiple shooters. as you mentioned earlier the initial gunman who shot the solderer at the war memorial has been shot dead himself. there are reports that there may be not one extra but perhaps more than one other shooter involved in this. police are monitoring bridges to quebec. so ottawa is a city that is separated from quebec by a river. so all of the bridges to quebec are being monitored. police are going door-to-door along sparks street, in search of these multiple shooters. sparks street is one of the

historic roadways from parliament hill. so if you imagine the precinct, so, parliament hill, near parliament hill is the war memorial. shen you have the chateau lauria hotel and rito center shopping mall. on the other end is sparks street. so it's a pretty wide swath swath of downtown ottawa under complete lockdown. as you mentioned earlier i just got a moat from the rcmp, they have issued a notice to everybody in every government building in downtown ottawa, stay, this means stay in your office with the doors locked and away from your windows. if your door does not lock, find a way to barricade the door if possible. do not open the door under any circumstances. shannon: you talked about three places we have heard there were shootings, that police are confirming, shootings at the mall area, at the war memorial, and of course inside of parliament. we at one point heard there was

some smoke inside of parliament. do you know anything about that? would that have maybe been in confusion and hustle there? or do we know there was any kind of additional material that may have been dispersed there? who knows if it was from law enforcement or from potential attackers? >> all i heard, shannon. there were multiple shots inside center block but nothing confirmed about any smoke. the only, only wildcard i guess is the fact that that the vehicle, that was impounded on scene at the war memorial, there was, concern that it may be containing explosives. shannon: is that car still there. >> don't know. shannon: okay. so obviously that is always a secondary concern as we discussed a little bit earlier. meantime there appears multiple agencies that have responded, officers in different uniforms and from different agencies, both inside and out. we see now it appears they're trying to escort some people out from the building who have

potentially been there on lockdown, trying to get them safely out. again there are concerns for people that are exposed at all on the streets. we've been hearing warnings, telling people to stay off the streets, away from windows. away from rooftops. again with heavy law enforcement presence, appears some people are being led out of the buildings. jon? jon: we are understanding that ottawa police will be making a statement in a moment. this situation just, well about two hours old at this point. as we understand it, it was about two hours ago that a gunman emerged from a car at the war memorial, just outside of the parliament building in ottawa. opened fire on the ceremonial guard who were there. one of them was hit, we know. the conditional ever the second guard we don't have any report on yet. but then apparently that same gunman jumped back into the car and we belief entered the --

believe entered parliament building, somebody entered parliament building with a gun. you said, shannon, there was smoke inside of parliament building, just based on gunshots we heard in that video a moment ag certainly a smoke from the gunpowder with that fusillade. the gunman that entered the parliament build something dead. we're waiting for a briefing beginning any moment now from ottawa police. we should mention that "outnumbered" will be joining us at some point during this hour, we expect. we want to get a statement from ottawa police first. multiple shooting locations. still awful lot of confusion. reports of shots fired at a hotel not too far from a parliament building. shots fired from a mall not too far away. whether people are hearing gunshots echoing