NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Monday, December 16, 2024

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Three dead, six injured in Wisconsin elementary school mass shooting, police said; Much of Northeast remains on edge over reported drone sightings; Indictment of suspect in CEO shooting could come any day; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

Tonight, the horror at a K-12 school in Wisconsin after police say a student opened fire. The massive police response to the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. A teenager and a teacher shot dead. At least six other students injured. The suspect, a student, also found dead. Our live report from the scene. Also tonight, the Northeast on edge as the drone mystery deepens, the infrared technology being deployed by Homeland Security, as President-elect Donald Trump suggests the federal government knows more than it is letting on about the strange sightings. Just in, new trouble for that accused Delta flight stowaway, where she has been arrested again while on bond.

President-elect Trump defending his health secretary pick, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and what they're both now saying about the polio vaccine as RFK Jr.'s views come under scrutiny. TikTok appealing to the Supreme Court hoping to stop a nationwide U.S. ban. Our conversation with the new Los Angeles County D.A. as he faces a major decision. Will he support resentencing the Menendez brothers? Let's grab the amount of pressure you're feeling. The shakeout that could impact the brothers' new chance at freedom and the long-awaited official honor for the bird that symbolizes the U.S.A. This is NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.

Good evening and welcome. A Christian school community in Madison, Wisconsin is tonight suffering beneath a crushing weight of grief and loss. Its sense of safety shattered by a mass shooting that left three people dead. A teenage student and a teacher were murdered. Another teen, believed to be the shooter, dead as well. The shooting took place late this morning at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. The attacker, according to police, was a student at the K-12 school. Six other people were injured, including two students rushed to a hospital with life-threatening wounds. Officers responding to a call of active shooter arrived at the school to find the suspected shooter dead. Police say officers did not fire their weapons.

President Biden in a statement tonight saying it is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence. NBC's Shaquille Brewster is in Madison now with the latest developments. Tonight, heartbreak hits the Midwest after a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. We know that three people are dead, including the suspect shooter. We know that the suspect shooter was a teenage student who attended the school. A teacher and teenage student were killed in the shooting. Everybody can come in. All EMS can come in. Shooter is down. Police are not releasing the shooter's age or gender, but say they injured six others. They say the scene was confined to one space in the small private school, which houses kindergarten through

12th grade. Two students are now in critical condition in the hospital, and these injuries THE SCHOOL. THE SCHOOL IS NOW IN CONTROL OF THE HOSPITAL WHICH HOUSES KINDERGARTEN THROUGH 12TH GRADE. TWO STUDENTS ARE NOW IN CRITICAL CONDITION IN THE HOSPITAL. AND THESE INJURIES ARE CONSIDERED LIFE THREATENING INJURIES.

POLICE CREDITING A TEAM OF MEDICS WHO WERE CONDUCTING A TRAINING EXERCISE NEARBY FOR RUSHING IN TO AID THE RESPONSE. NEIGHBORS WITNESSED THE SCRAMBLE. I SAW GROUPS OF KIDS COMING OUT OF THE SCHOOL IN GROUPS I saw groups of kids coming out of the school in groups into the church sanctuary, probably as they were in lockdown and clearing the building and slowly taking out the kids bit by bit by bit.

According to an NBC News tally, this is the fourth active shooting in an American school this year. Police say a handgun was used, but say they don't yet have details of a possible motive. The police chief says the shooter's family is cooperating. The White House says federal officials have offered support to local authorities to aid with the investigation. Last year, a shooting at a Christian school in Nashville left six people dead. The shooter, a former student, was shot dead at the scene. Tonight, parents in Wisconsin left shaken as another community is again left in mourning. SHAKIRA SHOCK, This is not OK. If your kids have school, they are not OK.

If they are at church, they are not OK. If they are outside elsewhere, they are not OK. Where are they going to be safe? JOHN YANG. Shak, what more are you learning about the investigation at this hour? SHAKIRA SHOCK, Well, Lester, police say they've made contact with the family of the suspect, but would not detail those conversations. We know investigators are interviewing witnesses,

going through surveillance video and executing search warrants. But the motive tonight and how the suspect was able to get access to that firearm is still unclear. Lester. All right, Shaq Brewster, thank you. Tonight, much of the country remains on edge after nearly a month of those reported drone sightings. And with everyone demanding answers, Tom Costello reports on how federal officials are trying to patrol our skies and put the public at ease. Tonight, the flashing lights from thousands of reported drone sightings across the Northeast may be coming into clearer focus.

Homeland Security says infrared technology is now helping police on the ground identify drones in the air. In New Jersey, the epicenter for most drone sightings for nearly a month, lawmakers continue demanding answers. I won't let the federal government insult the American people and claim they aren't seeing things that they're seeing with their own two eyes. Over the weekend, an FBI official said there had been more than 5,000 reported sightings, but only 100 warranted review. The vast majority appear to have been planes, helicopters and legitimate drone operations. Though President-elect Trump today suggested the government or military knows more about the drones than they're saying. Something strange is going on. For some reason, they don't want to tell the people.

We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the Northeast. Meanwhile, a company specializing in drone radar, Robin Radar, is now working with state police in New Jersey. How small of a target of a drone can you identify? Yeah, so we can, everything in radar comes down to how big it is, what's it made of, how fast is it moving. Because drones fly so low, FAA aviation radar typically doesn't spot them. FBI and FAA officials have said most drone sightings appear to line up with airport takeoff and landing patterns, suggesting the public might be mistaking regular air traffic, even passing satellites for drones. Drones are legal in daylight and nighttime. The FAA requires they remain under 400 feet.

They must stay at least five miles from airports and restricted areas, be in the line of sight of the drone operator, and the drone operator must have a license for larger drones and any commercial activity. Like other news organizations, NBC News uses drones for our news gathering. According to FAA regulations, we have a white strobe flashing on top. Planes, on the other hand, have white strobes on the wings, a solid red, a solid green light, and then a flashing red. Former FBI counter drone chief Rob D'Amico. They're 400 feet below. They have their lights on and they can see the drone. There's nothing illegal about it. Even if it's over your own property, you don't own the airspace.

Most drones have less than 30 minutes of battery life and limited range. It's hard to deny that there's a lot of rules out there and some people will follow them, some people won't. And Tom, we understand there's a late warning now from the FBI. The FBI Newark office now warning, don't try to shoot a drone out of the sky. You may be hitting a helicopter, a plane, a legitimate drone. It's a felony. In addition, that debris could cause serious injury or kill somebody on the ground. Lester?

All right, Tom, thank you. Now to breaking news about the stowaway caught aboard a Delta flight to Paris. Vetlana Dali was brought back to America earlier this month, but now she's been arrested again. STOWAWAY CAUGHT ABOARD A DELTA FLIGHT TO PARIS. VETLANADALI WAS BROUGHT BACK TO AMERICA EARLIER THIS MONTH, BUT NOW SHE'S BEEN ARRESTED AGAIN. JONATHAN DEAN'S JUST GETTING LATE BREAKING DETAILS. JONATHAN, WHAT HAPPENED? YEAH, LESTER, SHE FIRST GAINED NOTARIETY AFTER ALLEGEDLY FLYING AS A STOWAWAY FROM NEW YORK TO PARIS, AND SHE'S BACK IN CUSTODY AGAIN. TWO SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS TELL NBC THAT VETLANADALI WAS STAYING WITH HER BOYFRIEND IN PHILADELPHIA, AND AS PART OF again. Two senior law enforcement officials tell NBC that Lana Daly was staying with her

boyfriend in Philadelphia and as part of her bail had been ordered to have her whereabouts monitored by GPS ankle bracelet. Those officials say she cut her bracelet in Philadelphia and fled to the U.S.-Canada border on a Greyhound bus and picked up by Canadian authorities near Buffalo. She'll be in court tomorrow, Lester, and she's expected to be sent back to New York City to face charges tied to her alleged flight. Dally first captured law enforcement's attention after she evaded TSA security before boarding that flight from Paris to Paris from JFK. All right, Jonathan, thanks very much for that. President-elect Trump gave a strong defense of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today as his choice for Health and Human Services

Secretary amid questions about his views on vaccines as Kennedy met with senators who will decide if he could get that job. Garrett Haik has the latest. Tonight, Donald Trump's pick to be the nation's top federal health official, longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., making the first Capitol Hill appearance of his confirmation process, as the president-elect held his first news conference since winning the election. Trump defending his Department of Health and Human Services selection, Kennedy, repeatedly. What do you say to people who are worried that his views on vaccines will translate into policies that will make their kids less safe? DONALD TRUMP, President of the less safe? No, I think he's going to be much less radical than you would think. I think he's got a very open mind or I wouldn't have put him there. Kennedy has pushed discredited

theories that link childhood vaccines to autism and has been under fire after the New York Times reported a top advisor had petitioned the FDA in 2022 to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. You're not going to lose the polio vaccine. ThatALD TRUMP, President of the United States of America, You're not going to lose the polio vaccine. That's not going to happen. But we're going to look into finding why is the autism rate so much higher than it was 20, 25, 30 years ago. JOHN YANG, National Public Radio Network, Kennedy pressed today on if he supports the polio vaccine. DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States of America, Yeah, it's not going to happen. JOHN YANG, National Public Radio Network, Trump asked directly if schools should

mandate vaccinations, pivoting to COVID. DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States of America, I don't like mandates. I was against mandates. Mostly Democrat governors did the mandates. JOHN YANG, But school vaccination requirements are decided by states, with the federal government providing only recommendations and schedules, limiting the direct influence Kennedy or Trump could have. The president-elect's press conference called to tout $100 billion investment from Japanese

tech firm SoftBank, which Mr. Trump claimed would create 100,000 new American jobs. He's kept a low profile since his election victory, rarely straying far from his Mar-a-Lago club, as tech titans and foreign leaders have flocked to Florida to see him. DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States, The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something. But the biggest difference is that people want to get along with me this time.

JOHN YANG Today, commenting for the first time on the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States, It was cold-blooded, just a cold-blooded, horrible killing. And how people can like this guy is a – that's a sickness, actually. JOHN YANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT, CNN CORRESPONDENT, Trump also told reporters he sees ending the war in Ukraine as more complicated than settling the conflicts in the Middle East, insisting that both Presidents Putin and Zelensky have to be willing to make a deal. Lester.

LESTER BRYANT, CNN CORRESPONDENT, CNN CORRESPONDENT, All right, Garrett Haig, thank you. And also tonight, Syria's ousted dictator is breaking his silence for the first time since fleeing to Russia. It comes as families torn apart by his brutal regime are scrambling to reunite. Richard Angle is in Damascus. And a warning, the details are disturbing. RAY SUAREZ, Former President of the United States of America, Bashar al-Assad offered his version of events tonight, a week after he was overthrown.

In a statement, Assad claimed he was overseeing combat operations against the rebels he called terrorists and only left after a Russian commander ordered him to evacuate for his safety. ''At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refuge,'' Assad said on the Syrian presidency Telegram channel, although we cannot verify if Assad still controls the account. He said nothing about the mass graves now being uncovered daily or the more than 100,000 Syrians still missing. You handed me this.

You said, please, please, please put this one on camera, everyone here hoping, behind hope. But what's so disturbing is not a single person here has said that they have received a phone call. JARED BOWEN, Samira Zakour is looking for her son, Rashid. I have been searching for him for 11 years now, she says. Some reunions are happening. These two cousins were freed by the rebels from a regime prison.

They say they were savagely tortured. He said they used scissors to just cut off his fingers. These men were in the Saydnaya prison, where we reported last week how detainees described how Assad's guards used a hydraulic press to torture and kill people. They told me they heard the press and the screams, and that now they are restarting their lives with children who barely know them. NICK SCHIFRIN, Syrian President- Syrians are demanding that Assad be returned from

Moscow so he can be tried here for war crimes. It's unlikely that Putin will hand over his former ally. Lester. All right, Richard Engel, thank you. In 60 seconds, TikTok takes their fight to the Supreme Court, fighting a law that could ban it here in the U.S. Next. Just in, the major escalation of the battle over banning TikTok. Savannah Sellers joins us now. Savannah, TikTok is now taking this fight to the Supreme Court. Lester, that's absolutely right. The company filed an application with the court asking it to block the implementation of that law that could ban the app that millions of Americans use after a lower court upheld that very law, citing national security concerns.

They want the Supreme Court to take up the case, writing that the law will shutter one of America's most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration. That law would go into effect on January 19th if the justices don't side with TikTok and if TikTok's Chinese parent company hasn't sold the app. In the meantime, TikTok CEO met with President-elect Trump today at Mar-a-Lago. A source familiar with the meeting tells NBC News that was just hours after Mr. Trump said he has a warm spot for the company. TikTok has asked for a ruling on this pause by January 6th. Lester. All right, Savannah, thanks for the update. Coming up, my exclusive interview with the new Los Angeles County DA, what he says about resentencing the Menendez brothers. Next. We're back now with my conversation with the new district attorney of Los Angeles County,

whose inbox includes a 35 year old murder case that still captivates the nation. Fanned recently by films on Netflix and Peacock, raising questions of possible new evidence in the case of Lyle and Eric Menendez. How would you describe the amount of pressure you're feeling on the Menendez case? ERIC MENENDEZ, Former Attorney General of the United States Supreme Court of Justice, You know, it's not pressure. And this is why you sign up for a job like this. PAUL SOLMAN, The job, leading the nation's largest district attorney's office.

Nathan Hockman was swept into office amid a voter backlash against what critics saw as soft-on-crime policies of his predecessor, George Gascon, and rising violent crime. Your predecessor is referred to as a progressive. What does that make you? So what it makes me is common sense. I reject the extremes of both decarceration, which predetermines that certain crimes and certain criminals would not be prosecuted, notwithstanding the facts in the law, and also the other extreme of mass incarceration. JOHN YANG, Hawksman, a Republican turned independent, vows to operate from what he calls the hard middle, including in his approach to the Menendez case, in which the previous D.A. asked a judge to resentence the brothers, who are currently serving sentences

of life without parole for the 1989 murders of their parents. The pace is expeditious because we have a January 30th hearing. And I'm reading thousands of pages of confidential prison files. Hockman not tipping his hand as to where he may land on the case, but confirming personnel changes among the team that led the resentencing effort. tipping his hand as to where he may land on the case, but confirming personnel changes among the team that led the resentencing effort. Have you removed people who were directly involved in the Menendez case? So one of the people is actually no longer, will no longer be with the office.

And I will be speaking to everybody who's ever touched the Menendez case in the DA's office. We refer to them as the Menendez brothers, assuming they're always a package deal. In your view, as you do your review, do you leave open the possibility that their cases could be handled differently, that they would be split? DAVID BAKER You're absolutely correct. While they're called the Menendez brothers case, there's an Eric Menendez case and a Lyle Menendez case.

There's actually two different victims. There's a Jose Menendez, the father, and Kitty Menendez, the mother. So we will look at each case separately, which is the way they actually should be handled. We will look at each victim separately, which, again, is what the law actually demands us to do in reaching the ultimate decision over resentencing. JOHN YANG Have you thought about what message it would send if you were to endorse resentencing in this case? It's not so much a message, but a precedent, because the precedent of whatever we do in this case will apply to future cases that we deal with with requests for resentencing. We have to be consistent. Do you wish this was not on your desk?

Do I wish it was not on my desk? You know what? You're dealt the cards you're dealt with in this life. And the Menendez card has been dealt. It's a card that we will deal with. Part of my conversation with the new district attorney of Los Angeles County. Up next for us tonight, believe it or not, the bald eagle isn't America's national bird. But there's breaking news on that front tonight.

We'll explain. But then when breaking news on that front tonight. We'll explain. But then when it finally got to the floor. Finally, in many ways, the majestic bald eagle has long been a symbol for the United States, but it hasn't been official until now. Ryan Nobles with the good news tonight. On the banks of the Mississippi, a sleepy town in Minnesota has a unique tie to one of America's most iconic symbols. I've been wrong all these years, and so has everybody else in the country.

At least they thought they did. I mean, were you shocked to find out that it wasn't already the national bird? I was shocked, yes. I think everybody's shocked. The bald eagle is featured on the Great Seal of the United States, and all over uniforms, flags, insignias, and government buildings. But it's never officially been named the country's national bird. My teacher told me it was. Yeah, we might need to go rewrite a few textbooks. We have a national tree, a national mammal, even a national flower.

And yet the eagle has never received its official title. But in Wabasha, it was one man, Preston Cook, who discovered the omission while researching for a book and is working to fix it. If you ask the question to anybody on the street, they're going to give you the same answer. It's the bald eagle. We have no national bird, right? We've never had a national bird.

To put it mildly, Cook is obsessed with a bald eagle. If it had an eagle on it, I'd buy it. Starting in 1966, Preston collected anything he could with an eagle on it. His collection has grown to more than 40,000 pieces. We see more than an eagle. We see freedom. We see independence. We see power. So Preston set out on a mission. Partnering with Wabasha's National Eagle Center, he wrote a bill that makes the eagle the national bird. Preston set out on a mission. Partnering with Wabasha's National Eagle Center, he wrote a bill that makes the eagle the national bird. Preston Cook brought that up to us years ago and it was like, oh come on Preston, you're kidding me. So I'm glad that we're now figuring that out and making that happen. In late July, the Senate passed the bill 100 to nothing,

a rare feat in today's partisan Congress. And tonight, the House passed the bill as well. An amazing comeback for an amazing creature who almost 250 years later is finally getting the status it has already earned. Ryan Nobles, NBC News, Wabasha, Minnesota. The eagle has landed. That is nightly news for this Monday. Thank you for watching. I'm Lester Holt.

Please take care of yourself and each other. Good night.