The Megyn Kelly Show - Horrifying Catholic School Shooting in Minneapolis - What We're Learning About Victims and Perpetrator

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Megyn Kelly opens the show discussing the breaking news of the horrifying shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, the details we know so far, reports on the young children who have been killed and ...injured, and more. Then Liz Collin of Alpha News, former FBI supervisor James Gagliano, and Brandon Tatum, host of "The Officer Tatum Show," join to discuss the tragic shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school this morning, what we know so far, reports of other recent shootings in the area, security measures that should be taken in schools, the left's rush to focus on guns, the different “layers” of protection that can be put between civilians and danger, and more. Then ProActive Response Group Chad Ayers, former police officer and candidate for U.S. Congress Joe Leurs, and co-founder and CEO of SaferWatch Geno Roefaro join to discuss disturbing social media videos of the school shooter being uncovered, the trainings to help prevent tragedies like this, the warning signs that are often overlooked, patterns of mental illness among these criminals, and more. Riverbend Ranch: Visit https://riverbendranch.com/ | Use promo code MEGYN for $20 off your first order.Just Thrive: Visit https://justthrivehealth.com/discount/Megyn and use code MEGYN to save 20% sitewideAll Family Pharmacy: Order now at https://allfamilypharmacy.com/MEGYN and save 10% with code MEGYN10Grand Canyon University: https://GCU.edu  Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hi, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show. We start today with the breaking news out of Minneapolis, and the reports are terrible. There is currently a massive law enforcement response to a shooting at Annunciation Catholic school and church this morning. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports first responders. said there were at least 20 victims that does not mean 20 are dead, but 20 were hurt in some way. According to emergency dispatch audio, Reuters now reporting that three are dead, including the shooter, and 20 are injured, citing a Justice Department official. Annunciation School runs from pre-K through eighth grade, and the school began just two days ago. School started on Monday.
Starting point is 00:00:57 These are kids just back from their summer. vacations, from having fun with their families, the excitement of the first couple of days of school, seeing your friends again, and literally beginning the year in worship, going to the mass, as this was a Catholic school and the adjoining church. They were packed in pews at an 8.15 a.m. school mass. They're literally praying when they were shot. It's like, how is there an explanation? How is their faith in these moments? It's so hard.
Starting point is 00:01:34 It's so hard. A shooter started firing what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon, according to a parent who witnessed the incident. Some are describing it as a rifle. The parent told the Star Tribune, quote, he just pepper sprayed, meaning the gun, threw the stained glass windows into the building, 50 to 100 shots. A man who lives in the area spoke about what he heard to News Nation. This gentleman goes to morning mass every day of the week, and he usually goes to the basilica.
Starting point is 00:02:07 He just happened to go here randomly, and this is what happened. And you talked to him as he came out. All the parents were on the, if you've never been in there, there's a right and left, and there's an aisle in between. So all the parents were on the left side. And so he was on the left side. So there must have been sporadic gunfire going on. He said it looked like just a normal Sunday mass.
Starting point is 00:02:33 So it was full, you know, of people and children. And how did he get out? He just ran, you know, when the fire, he said it seemed like it went on for eternity, but when it stopped, he just ran out of the building. When did you first hear about this? So we live about two blocks from here. I was on a call. All the windows of our home were open.
Starting point is 00:02:56 I know what gunfire sounds like. and I could tell, I was shocked. I said, there's no way that that could be gunfire. There was so much of it. So it was sporadic. So it was a semi-automatic. It seemed like a rifle. It certainly didn't sound like a handgun.
Starting point is 00:03:13 And so he must have reloaded, you know, several times for sure. Do you remember about how many gunshots? I'll just say maybe 30 to 50 to, you know, somewhere in that area. Do you recall about how long the fire went on for, I would say, several minutes. I mean, three minutes or, no, four, I mean, which is a long time for live gunfire. At this moment, we're receiving more information from local officials there. The mayor describing the shooter as armed with a rifle shotgun, a pistol as well. we are now being told by the authorities two children are dead ages eight and ten killed where they
Starting point is 00:04:02 were sitting in the church their parents have been notified another 17 have been injured 14 of whom are kids two of those kids in critical condition at this hour the shooter took his own life as all of these cowards do in the rear of the church right now we know nothing about him other than it's one suspect. He's deceased. They say he's in his early 20s, does not have an extensive known criminal history. They're looking for motive. I mean, look, it's early, but I've covered so many of these, so many of these as a news reporter. And whatever the specific shooter's motivation, what it tends to be, I mean, I could have told you this guy was in his early 20s before we had that report is a guy in his early to mid-20s, possibly late teens
Starting point is 00:04:57 at the earliest, who's had a psychotic break, who's had some sort of schizophrenic, psychotic mental health break, which is basically when it happens and goes homicidal. And there will have been signs. There will have been social media postings generally. There will have been people in the shooter's surrounding environment, whether it's his school, his work, or just his family or friends. friends who have seen troubling signs. And sometimes they report them and sometimes they don't. And sometimes they've had mental health interactions with professionals and sometimes they haven't.
Starting point is 00:05:30 But in all cases, the signs were there. And we as a society did nothing. I mean, that's really generally how it goes. Even if we had an interaction with a mental health institution or with law enforcement, it's revolving door. Out they go. It's someone else's problem until it's the problem of a bunch of school children literally praying. as they were shot to death. The local CBS affiliate describing the emotional scene as it unfolded here.
Starting point is 00:06:02 I'm directly in front of the entrance to the school on Barfield Avenue and West 54th, right off of Windale. And I had seen children leave the school with bandages on their arm. One child left with a bandage on his arm, race to his mother, or an embrace.
Starting point is 00:06:23 It's clearly a very serious situation. We will not speculate on any details. What we know now is what I'm seeing, and what I'm seeing is an active police scene outside of the school, and I've seen two children leave with bandages on their arm. It's a really emotional scene here for people who are looking on. I've seen very distraught-looking people, potentially parents whose children attend this school.
Starting point is 00:06:54 And I have seen police school in and out of the school here, at least a dozen ambulances locking off the entire road, and just a very active scene and an emotional one for the parents and the families. And as you can hear there, some of the reporters covering it, how could it not be? The Minneapolis Star Tribune reporting young children in school uniforms were seen filing out of the building clasping hands with their parents and friends. Some did not have shoes on. A little boy crying and walking away from the scene was heard saying to his father, I don't feel safe. I mean, these kids experienced quite a trauma this morning, even the ones who were not injured physically.
Starting point is 00:07:42 President Trump posting on true social quote, I have been fully briefed on the tragic. shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The FBI quickly responded, and they are on the scene. The White House will continue to monitor this terrible situation. Please join me in praying for everyone involved. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, writing on X, quote, I am praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence. Law enforcement updating, again, looking for motive. No explosives were found at the scene. one smoke bomb, like a firework, was apparently found. Do not know whether that was deployed or not.
Starting point is 00:08:24 Joining me now for reaction, Minnesota journalist Liz Collin of Alpha News. James Gagliano, retired FBI supervisory agent. James was the senior FBI SWAT team leader for the FBI's New York office and a member of the FBI's elite hostage rescue team. And Brandon Tatum, he's former police officer and host of the Officer Tatum show. I've been talking a lot lately about Riverbend Ranch, and that's because I love their stakes. River Bend Ranch has taken Black Angus beef to a whole new level. For the last 35 years, River Bend Ranch has been creating a very elite Angus herd by using ultrasound to select genetically superior cattle
Starting point is 00:09:04 with a focus on flavor and tenderness. When you buy from River Bend Ranch, you are not only supporting the 64 cowboys and cowgirls and their families who work on the ranch, but you're also supporting over 260 other U.S. ranches and the hundreds of American families who work on those ranches. It is born in the USA, raised in the USA, and processed in the USA. It is aged to perfection for 21 days and shipped directly from the ranch to your home. This is not your average black angus beef. So order from Riverbendranch.com and use the promo code Megan for 20 bucks off your first order. And let me know what you think, Riverbendranch.com promo code Megan. Thank you all so much for being here.
Starting point is 00:09:46 Let me start with you on it, James. Your reaction to the news coming out so far that this appears to be one shooter who took his own life after gunning down a bunch of defenseless school children. Megan, you laid it out perfectly in the preamble. I mean, this happens all too often. And look, going back to 1966 and the University of Texas clock tower shooting
Starting point is 00:10:07 where Charles Whitman went up into a clock tower in August of 1966 and gunned down a bunch of co-eds, which is generally considered the first quote unquote mass shooting that begun the need in the nexus for SWAT in this country. It's just a sad, sad situation. Look, I think right now the number one thing, the focus is, was this a conspiracy or was this a lone wolf actor? And you described the disaffected, disenfranchised outsider that typically fills the bill in these things. Yes, there'll be a history of mental illness.
Starting point is 00:10:43 Yes, there'll be questions on how did he get his hands on a semi-automatic rifle. There's going to be questions about how did we not notice this with all the red flags that appear to be available. But, Megan, we live in a country that treasures and prizes are civil liberties. We don't want martial law. And at the same time, how does this happen? How does a church and a school with young children in it get targeted and so many people either wounded or lost their lives this morning? Horrible, horrible tragedy. Liz, you're a reporter in Minneapolis and Minnesota.
Starting point is 00:11:16 This, I mean, it's unbelievably tragic, and parents can't get their arms around it, whether their child was involved or not. But the reporting we're hearing is that this is the second day in a row where a Christian school was targeted, that there was another Christian school targeted yesterday, four miles away from this, or a Jesuit high school? Yeah, actually, Megan, this is now the fourth shooting that has taken place in Minneapolis in less than a 24-hour period. We've had three fatal shootings in a 12-hour period before this horrific act of violence at this Catholic school in Minneapolis. But you're right, there was a mass shooting just yesterday outside of Christo Ray High School, which is another Catholic school. At this point, in the press conference that just wrapped up here on scene, they did say they did not see any sort of connection between these other shootings. But one Minneapolis
Starting point is 00:12:16 police officer told me this morning, in his opinion, this has been the darkest 24 hours in Minneapolis history. Keep in mind, this is a police force down nearly 40% after what happened after the George Floyd incident in 2020. These cops are already really stretched to the limits and to see these horrific scenes unfolding in southwest Minneapolis this morning, absolutely heartbreaking. And I'll be honest, this is actually where my son attended preschool when I lived in Minneapolis for more than 10 years. So really kind of personal for many of us here as well.
Starting point is 00:12:56 And still, so many answers. But it's hard to even imagine school starts on a Monday. Tuesday morning, there's a mass where all the kids go. all the little kids, the big kids, they're all there for mass each and every morning. It's a terrific school, and I can't say enough about the good people there. And gunfire erupts through the windows at these children. Again, as you said, we have two children dead. I've been in touch with sources at both the Hennepin County Medical Center and Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.
Starting point is 00:13:31 They are treating multiple victims on scene. It did come in originally as up to 20 victims, and that's, seems to be the case. It sounds like multiple victims are in critical condition at this point, and they are in the most serious areas of the hospital being treated. And again, the gunman seems to have killed himself right in the parking lot there, according to what we just heard in the press conference. Do we know, Liz, whether this is a level one trauma center where the kids have been brought to? Yeah, there's both two facilities. that both are able to handle these types of calls.
Starting point is 00:14:11 But in my correspondence with my sources at Hennepin County Medical Center, they've said they were kind of overwhelmed, you know, previously with the gunfire that has erupted in the city. So they were doing their best to scramble and get in. It sounds like to treat these children, just absolutely horrific to think about. I'll be back to you one sec, because I have questions about the church, too,
Starting point is 00:14:37 especially since you've got a personal connection to it. Brandon, the reports are that they're going through the shooter's vehicle, which is in the church parking lot. I guess the police were saying they don't see a connection to the shooting that happened yesterday behind this Jesuit high school, although I will say in that case, they say a man was killed, five men and one woman were also injured, and the suspect got away,
Starting point is 00:15:00 but the police apparently not thinking that it's the same person who committed this atrocity. you know, there are going to be a lot of parents who are wondering what they can do, what they can do. I mean, even if this school were fortified with a security officer, I'm not sure they'd be outside of the church when the kids went to Mass. There's a certain belief, I think, that we have, that there are certain institutions that just aren't going to be targeted. And it's baseless, unfortunately. Well, I think it's a, and thanks for having me on, Megan. And I think that this is a combination of issues that we need to address in society.
Starting point is 00:15:37 One is that we do need to fortify these schools. We cannot take it for granted that there's nut jobs out here that's looking to kill innocent people. You know, it hit home to me. My son just went to school today. He goes to a Catholic school and they do mass. And it makes me think about it all the time. What if an assailant decide to come to the school? What security measures do they have in place?
Starting point is 00:15:55 This is not a matter of, in many cases, it's not a matter of if it's when somebody's going to attempt to assault a Christian. institution. And one of the things that I think is problematic is we don't give it enough credit to our efforts to fight against anti-Christian rhetoric. You know, we have anti-Jewish rhetoric. We have anti-Muslim rhetoric. But where is the rhetoric that is targeted against people who attack Christians? It is not a coincidence that this person decided to attack a Catholic school on the day that they do mass. And I think it's a huge problem. But we need to fortify our schools. We need to stop playing games and hoping that a hope and a prayer is going to stop our children from getting shot. We need security at the school. We need police officers in school.
Starting point is 00:16:40 I don't care how much of a boogeyman it looks like to certain people. We need people there to be able to rapidly respond. And I'm not saying there's nobody at this school, but I think that schools need to fortify the school a little bit more. And therefore, they can be there to respond rapidly and make sure that there's not as many casualties as could be if they don't have anyone who could defend the students and the teachers there. That's right. That was my first reaction. Where's the good guy with a gun? How did he have such unfettered access to children for so long? And we heard the eyewitness account at the top of the show. Here's another one. This is a neighbor. Bill Byneman is his name. What he was saying is that there's no way he believed it was
Starting point is 00:17:19 gunfire because it went on too long. And that's the thing, James. You know, Minneapolis, Minnesota, it's got very tight gun laws. There clearly wasn't a good guy with a gun there because it wasn't just this guy, Bill, somebody else described what sounded like a pause and a reloading by this guy. There clearly was not a resource officer or a security officer who was armed. I mean, I'm assuming, because I assume that person would have taken this guy out a lot sooner. Yeah, I'll go back to what Brandon was saying just a few minutes ago. Whether you go back to the Parkland tragedy, which was back in 2018, or the Uvaldi, Texas tragedy where a number of students were shot to death in a school out in
Starting point is 00:17:58 Texas, law enforcement has to go to the sound of the guns. The days of being methodical and slowly but surely with shields and advancing slowly toward the threat are over. When these things happen, and look, Megan, this is way early in the process. Could, and I'm going to throw this out as a supposition, but that's what we do here in the criminology department, could this be a case of workplace violence? Okay, yes. Could it be a domestic dispute? Okay, yes. But probably, as we look at this, was this something more owners where somebody targeted this place because of either the religion or the ideology there, the fact that it was a school, or was it some unhinged person that decided they wanted to ratchet up a body count?
Starting point is 00:18:45 All those things don't matter until the shooter is down. We know the shooter is down now, and now we've got to do a couple of things. One, makes certain that there was no conspiracy a foot there? Is this part of a broader conspiracy where there might be other targets? If we determine that's not the case, okay, now we step back, take a deep breath, and now we figure out how do we prevent the next one? Well, there's lots of ways. You just mentioned it, a school resource officer, a single point entry into these places, and Megan, I'll put my political hat on for a second. So I just stepped down after two terms as a mayor in an upstate village in New York State. And one of the things that we were concerned about a couple years ago, there were
Starting point is 00:19:26 credible threats against Catholic churches in communities across New York State. I was pleasantly surprised to go to speak to my own pastor at our own Catholic Church here to find out that they already have plans in place. Most places, whether they're synagogues, whether they're Catholic churches, whether they're mosque. They understand that unhinged people, and yes, terrorists. Because what is terrorism. It's violence or the threat of sane in the pursuit of certain political, ideological, or religious goals. And in this instance, way too early to make that determination, but the fact that there should have been a school resource officer there, there should have been somebody armed and carrying concealed in these places, because unfortunately, as Brandon pointed out a minute
Starting point is 00:20:12 ago, there are targets and threats, and this is unfortunately the new normal. Liz, do you have any idea as somebody who had a child there? I'm like, I'm very well aware of what the security plans are at my children's schools because obviously I'm in news. And as you well know, we think we have to think about these things more than the average citizen ever wants to. Do we know anything about whether this is a school that had a good guy with a gun on standby just in case? Yeah, I mean, in my time there, which is about eight, nine years ago, when I moved out of the city of Minneapolis, I can say no, that there was not an armed security guard there at the school. I'll also say that this mass, it takes place every morning, and the school itself, which is K through 8 building, but they do offer some preschool programs there as well, is that an older building, I would kind of describe it as a bit of a maze, the way that many of them are makeshipped classrooms, so that was my immediate thought that perhaps this gunman somehow got inside and was going room to room, but then to hear these details to just open fire through the stained glass windows during mass, which just where the kids basically start their day each and every morning. Obviously added another horrific element to all this. I was just getting some latest information here from the hospital on the numbers, and they are saying this is from Hennepin County Medical Center,
Starting point is 00:21:40 that children ages 6 through 14 are being treated there. Six of them are in critical condition. So six of them are in critical at this point, And again, kids ages 6 through 14, they say that they got 11 patients total from the shooting. Nine, they consider pediatric patients and two adults. So that is the latest from Hennepin County. So the reports, again, that as many as 20 shot in this incident, those were the initial reports just a couple of hours ago now seem to be the case with what the hospitals are reporting now at this hour. I mean, the thing that's so frustrating and watching all this, Brandon, is I'll tell you right now, nothing's going to change. Absolutely, nothing is going to change. We had 20 dead first graders at Sandy Hook. Nothing has, nothing changed. If you don't change after 20 dead first graders, you don't change. And I understand it because we're a free country and we can't protect against any and all threats out there. But we can fortify the areas where our most vulnerable are. You know,
Starting point is 00:22:51 And that means the schools, whether it's the school itself or the adjacent church where they worship because it's a Catholic school. That we actually can do. But you know as well as I do, what we're about to do is spiral into a debate about guns. That's where the media and the left will take this. That's what they do every time. And my own belief is that's exactly why nothing will change. That actually might stop the next one. Well, yeah, because the thing is, if you're focusing on the wrong,
Starting point is 00:23:21 issue you can never fix anything is you know in this situation the gun is not the problem the person with the gun is the problem clearly there's many people with guns that are not shooting up a school and then you go down the list of how could this have happened and there's like you said megan there are signs this parents where are the parents at where are the people that are saying this person is crazy this person is threatening to shoot up places this person is you know a loner and there's signs to this stuff and we have laws and we have investigatory bodies that look into these things. The FBI looks into them, local law enforcement, counterterrorism. We have elements in place that already exist that we could actually utilize that can prevent these
Starting point is 00:24:03 things. It's very clear, Megan, you know, people want to use this as a political pawn because they hate guns. They want to make Donald Trump look bad. They want to make Republicans look bad, either side of the spectrum. And they would rather talk about the guns. They would rather talk about bands. They would rather talk about ban on AR-15s. But the truth of the matter is, Law-abiding citizens are going to be the only people that are affected by a ban of Air 15. Crazy lunatics will always have an opportunity to obtain firearms. Same thing in prohibition. People will be able to get illegal things if they have their mindset on it.
Starting point is 00:24:38 And they're going to shoot up more and more schools and hurt more people because nobody's going to be armed, especially the good guys. It is asinine to me that at this point, we are not focusing on bolstering our law enforcement agencies, making them have higher staff numbers so they can protect schools like this. There's nothing outside of the realm of saying we need to hire more law enforcement. We need to have every school, especially public schools, because that is where the money comes from. But every public school should have multiple resource officers there to protect, there to prevent crimes outside of mass shootings. And then we'll look at it like this. If we go back, and it's early in this investigation, so we don't know all the details. But if we go back to this school, I guarantee you that there was no real recourse.
Starting point is 00:25:27 That's why this person chose this particular school during mass. They probably scouted the school, may have gone to the school, and they know that when I go here, I'm going to be unabetted. I'm not going to have any resistance from any teacher, from any law enforcement, no security. And that's why they went to that school and not the school down the street or the school around the corner. And when are we going to wake up to this reality? If I had control of the schools, I would say we need to have armed security staff with AR-15s at the school. You can have them staged in a strategic area where they're not visible to the kids. But when somebody comes on campus, they can react very swiftly.
Starting point is 00:26:08 I completely agree. There need to be more cops or law enforcement. or security officers at these schools armed, armed officers. We're about, I guarantee you we're going to spiral into the guns, guns, guns. And I'm totally open-minded to if this guy had some sort of mental health history and got a gun anyway, we should definitely be looking into how that happened and try to stop that from continuing to happen in other cases. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:26:34 But another gun law is not going to do it. We have 400 million guns in the United States of America. 400 million. The vast majority of them are semi-automatic handguns. They will never be taken away from the people. Never. Even if there were a voluntary give up your gun program, there would still be hundreds of millions out there that people would hold. It's America. It's too embedded in the foundation and fabric of who we are. The answer, my friends, I'm sorry to my gun control advocates. Friends, it's not more laws on guns. It's not. It's not going to work. It hasn't work. You are the one stopping the productive conversations. You are. What we need is more good guys with guns on soft targets. And yes, we need to take a serious look at our mental health system and why we don't mandatorily institutionalize people around whom there have been repeated red flags who the rest of us can see in many cases very clearly were on a steady path to deteriorating. Right? Like we've seen it many, many times. And I don't know what this guy's
Starting point is 00:27:43 history is going to be, but I guarantee you it is what I said at the top. There's going to be some issue around this guy. It could be one of a number of things, but people are going to have a talk or in a discussion about whether he was spiraling. Could have been medication involved, could have been a mental health system that's already seeing this guy.
Starting point is 00:27:58 But there will have been signs, and we will have done very little about it. Liz, you're, Minneapolis, Minnesota has very strong gun laws. I just asked the team to pull the summary for me before we went on the air. Minnesota requires background checks for handgun purchases at the point of sale and or for permit to purchase, allows law enforcement and often family members to petition for a court order to temporarily prevent someone in crisis from accessing guns, bars gun possession by people who have been involuntarily committed or found to be a danger to themselves or others, requires that firearms be stored, locked, unloaded, and separate from ammo in certain circumstances, assault weapons prohibited, bars concealed carry by people with assault or other violent misdemeanor convictions.
Starting point is 00:28:43 How many times have we seen this in states with the toughest gun laws in the nation, including New York State, just a month ago, where that guy walked into that building and shot up, you know, the lobby and then went up to the whatever floor it was, 20-something. Talk to me a little bit about the Minnesota attitude toward guns and fortification of soft targets. You know, I think it's such an important point to bring up in all of this. It wasn't that long ago that school resource officers were not even allowed in Minnesota schools. This was post-George Floyd when several departments decided to pull their officers out of the schools. There were some liability issues after some laws passed by the DFL trifecta here in
Starting point is 00:29:26 Minnesota at the time. That's the Democratic Party basically of Minnesota and Governor Wals, who still is here as governor signed off on all of this. Well, finally, they had to go ahead and make some law changes to allow SROs back in school. And that's just a pretty recent. So there was more than one school year that passed, not even allowing SROs and schools at all in Minnesota. And again, hard to ignore the politics at play in Minneapolis. You have a primarily socialist-controlled city council in Minneapolis. This isn't me calling them socialists. They are self-proclaimed socialists.
Starting point is 00:30:04 They do not like the police. We continue covering these stories, you know, day after day, month after month, year after a year, in Minneapolis about their feelings about the police department. This really isn't rocket science if they want to fix this. This has, you know, we did not report on these issues before, yet they continue to peddle, you know, the crime is down narrative in Minneapolis, despite, you know, we have four shootings here in less than 24 hours. And I will say, even the first mass shooting that took place just yesterday outside of the other school, barely even made the news. It was about a 22nd mention on the corporate media here in Minnesota because they're not really willing to
Starting point is 00:30:47 get to the bottom of why this is happening. And, you know, and again, this didn't happen before. You had a Minneapolis police department. Nearly 900 officers were once on the force. Now I think it's about 350. They're actually even on the streets of Minneapolis at this point. So that certainly, you know, plays a role in this as well. I want to just remind our viewers that you and Alpha News were behind the documentary about what really happened in the George Floyd situation and with Derek Chauvin and have backed the blue just by telling the truth. And it's a very important documentary that everybody should see. And obviously you had concerns then about what was happening to the Minneapolis police force, which is related. It's obviously not necessarily. We don't know yet at the heart of this. But there will be questions about response time and could it have been faster if there had been. more bodies available. And certainly, should there just be a standard of a current or retired cop or law enforcement type outside of these venues? I want to play a little bit from the
Starting point is 00:31:52 Minneapolis mayor. His name is Jacob Fry. He's the guy who knelt before the casket of George Floyd, which is sort of an infamous moment among people who watched this all go down years ago. And he took to the microphones just as we were coming on the air. Here's what he said. these were Minneapolis families these were American families and the amount of pain that they are suffering right now is extraordinary and don't just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now these kids were literally praying it was the first week of school they were in a church these are kids that should be learning with their friends Okay. I don't understand this, Brandon, when people say, reject thoughts and prayers because they didn't happen to prevent the injury. They didn't have. Like, what, what does Jacob Fry have in mind? Where were his city mandated security officers? What he, so, I mean, even his governor, the far left Tim Walz, is offering thoughts and prayers because it's a human response to tragedy.
Starting point is 00:32:59 well these godless mindless people of course they think that thoughts and prayers don't work you know maybe the thoughts and prayers is the school preventing more kids from dying how would he know but the funny thing is is that if he went to mass to visit this school he would have a security detail there why just in case somebody decided to try to take his life but his thoughts and prayer comment is not backed up with any kind of real tangible actions that he's willing to take. Is he going to say on the news with his theater that he's presenting that we need to fortify the schools? Let me tell you something real quick, Megan. I think you know this and everybody on the panel know this. Which one will happen quicker? If we pass legislation to ban every
Starting point is 00:33:41 air 15, every assault weapon or whatever they call it in the state of Minnesota, period, that mean nobody can own them. They have a gun confiscation. Which one will happen quicker? That legislative power or fortified in the school. I mean, tonight, they can. get police officers at the school. Tonight, they can hire private security. Tonight, they can do it every school in the city by, at least at the end of this week, every school can have somebody. If they wanted to pass legislation, it's going to take forever. It has to go through the Congress in the state. They have to somehow pass it. They have to go through the house. It has to go through the governor, has to sign in the law. Then it has to go into effect. And then you have to have
Starting point is 00:34:24 somebody enforced the law? I mean, these people are, they make me infuriated, especially when they try to say that thoughts and prayers don't matter. Well, maybe the thoughts and prayers is would have prevented this nut job from shooting the school up a long time ago or doing more than one school shooting at a time or the fact that there's 400 million guns and there's not a murder every 20 seconds in this country. Maybe our thoughts and prayers and our prayers to God to protect us have been effective. And I just can't stand when these godless people who are either fake Christians, fake Catholics, or they don't believe in God at all, are out here trying to shun a religion for saying we are going to at least pray and be faithful to our God for protection. And just because
Starting point is 00:35:08 it don't work 100% of the time in the moment does not mean that God isn't working. It does not mean that we can't do something about it. It's not about just praying. God said in the Bible that you seek and you shall find knocking it shall be open that mean the action needs to come from you and god will then protect you in the action that you take thank you so much for saying it but i you know i open the show saying these are the moments when you see an eight-year-old and a 10-year-old shot to death in a church you know at school opening the day in prayer that your own faith can get rattled right like why why god why you know you just don't understand it but the second half of that is this kind of thing, not this particular tragedy, but tragedy, awful things happen all the time.
Starting point is 00:35:53 And you ask God, why? Why would you allow it? Why is it okay? Why do kids get cancer? Why do you let them suffer at all? It's part of being a faithful person to ask that question, and it's totally fine to ask that question. And then you remind yourself, most of us do, of our own status as mere mortals. You know, that we can't know everything. We don't have all the answers. And we never will, but you go on believing anyway. You don't give up on prayer. You don't give up on faith when you need it most. And let's face it, when you're a mayor in a position like this guy, that's just a totally inappropriate response. Who's he trying to pawn responsibility off on? Right? James, it's like, you're the mayor. You're up there saying thoughts and prayers. What did you do to try to
Starting point is 00:36:39 prevent this? Because no one's like blaming you yet, but you're out there blaming people for calling for prayer as somehow they're inappropriate? Yeah, well, Megan, unfortunately, as a recovering politician, you know, I think a big part of this is politicians use these moments for opportunities and opportunities to get their name and face in front of the camera, opportunities to apply platitudes and bromides as they feel necessary to, and then also to push their own ideological bent. And look, you laid it out. This is a country of 327 million people. There are 400 million guns in this country. This country was founded upon the Second Amendment. There's no way possible that you're going to go back and figure out the solution
Starting point is 00:37:27 here is we're just going to start, you know, collecting up guns. We're going to have a gun buyback program. People are going to willingly turn them in. We're going to offer them a $50 gift certificate to Walmart and that's going to solve the problem. We've got to be pragmatic about this. The vast majority of gun owners in this country, and I say this is a 25-year law enforcement veteran. The vast majority are good and decent citizens. They're the best of the best. They follow the rules. They get permits where applicable. They subject themselves to background checks. They go through the process appropriately. The problem is, when you live, as you pointed out at the top of this, when you live in a free society that's not subjected to martial law, it's next to
Starting point is 00:38:12 impossible to ensure that evil doesn't happen. And I think Brandon might have mentioned this before. You know, it's the path of least resistance. I tell my kids all the time. If you don't lock your car door, you're going to guarantee somebody breaking into your car and taking something. If you lock it, it's no guarantee that that that won't happen. But you make it a little bit more difficult for the criminal. Criminals, evil people, mass shooters, terrorists. They're all the same. They follow the path of least resistance. If this school looked like an opportune place to go and to spray rounds inside windows and to attack people saying their daily mass, that's what happened.
Starting point is 00:38:54 Now, is it a guarantee? Is it a panacea to say one-armed SRO there might have been the difference? No, but you've got to put the deterrent effect up there. You've got to ensure that you make it as difficult as possible. And, Megan, that's the right conversation to be having now in the wake of this horrible tragedy. That's right. How many layers? My audience, let me talk about this before just from my own security. It's all about putting layers between you and a bad guy. How many layers can you put? And we didn't have enough layers between these children and a bad guy. And it's not 2020 hindsight.
Starting point is 00:39:25 It's just a question of let's be real about how we could have protected them because it is the first week of school for millions of American school kids. And next week is the first week of school for millions more. And then there really are things that can be done. On that front, James, can I just ask you because, you know, as a news person, I also know, sadly, that these things are often followed by copycat events. I'm sorry to say it. It's just, it is true. And that could be potentially at another place of worship or at another school. And so if you got called in to advise those venues, any one of them right now, what would you be telling them? That's a great question, Megan. Look, I grew up in the deep south. You can't tell from my accent. In Decatur, Georgia, in the 1970,
Starting point is 00:40:08 and 80s. The biggest fear I had at my elementary school was, oh my gosh, the Russian threat, the Soviet Union is going to bomb us and we have to get underneath our desk and tornado drills. We never had mass shooting drills. Unfortunately, the paradigm has shifted and in law enforcement, we have to shift and adapt to that. Now, our copycats, real things. Absolutely. But copycats don't just follow something that happens in the news. They could go see a Denzel Washington movie or an Al Pacino movie and see something there, and they could all of a sudden become entranced by that and do the same thing. The problem is we know that schools, malls, places of math gatherings, houses of worship, why are those such delectable targets to terrorists and
Starting point is 00:41:00 mass shooters that are looking to ratchet up body counts? Because they're soft targets. You know, to go to a sporting event, to go to, you know, MetLife Stadium in New York and watch the New York Giants play, you can't be armed. You're going through, as you just pointed out, layers of screening. We need that, unfortunately. It's a sad state of affairs, but that's where we are. We need that in churches, and we need that in schools ASAP. It wouldn't, I mean, you could do it such that the kids don't even know they're going through a magnetometer. You really could. Like, they'd know because eventually, you know, somebody would always have something, not a gun, but something metal that would go off and they'd figure it out, but you could make it such that it's not like it is at the airport where it's
Starting point is 00:41:40 just kind of less obvious and they're walking through it in the mornings. And at a minimum, you could put a guy with a gun or ideally more than one standing out in front of the school so that if in a situation like this, if there had been two guys armed outside of that church because the most precious cargo was inside of it, the guy, I mean, the odds of like a guy being able to come up and take out one guy unexpectedly, I guess, are higher, but two. Unless it's a sharpshooter with a lot of training, I just, I have my doubts. Liz, what are you hearing now from, I know you've been checking your sources this entire conversation. It sounds like to me, like the Hennepin County Hospital has just now made public what you already reported that their injuries are between six years old and two, six and between six and 14 year olds, that some six are in critical condition and that they received 16 patients, nine of whom are pediatric.
Starting point is 00:42:32 what's the latest, as far as you know? Yeah, and along with that, two adults being treated there at Hennepin County Medical Center as well, which is the trauma center in downtown Minneapolis. They did also say at the press conference that apparently this man, again, in his early 20s, dressed in black by the sound of things, does not have a criminal record. That is what they did say at the press conference this morning. You know, I wanted to bring up a point that I think is also interesting. Mayor Jacob Fry attended the Minnesota State Fair, I know, last week and was flanked with police officers there at the fair.
Starting point is 00:43:12 Many were with him. It's kind of hard for many of us to even take this guy seriously after, you know, everything that has transpired in Minneapolis. But the hypocrisy is really through the roof with many of the things coming out of his mouth here at this, you know, press conference. this morning at the scene of this horrific shooting. As far as I know, I don't remember there being an incident where somebody actually tried to take out the mayor. And not that we want that. I mean, I want him to stay well and healthy and do this job as long as the Minneapolis folks
Starting point is 00:43:43 want him there. But there was just an attack on a Catholic school yesterday. So you'd think if there were time to beef up security at the schools, in particular, possibly the Catholic ones, that would have been today. But after all of these shootings, he has very little to say. If you're saying anything at all, Megan, it's the fact, you know, how great Minneapolis is and how crime is down. They've went ahead and encrypted their communications, so now you can't even report many of these incidents at all in real time. They took that away because too many independent journalists were putting out, you know, what was really happening in Minneapolis.
Starting point is 00:44:20 So that change finally took place. So there's a lot of creative ways that they are doing things here in Minneapolis to keep the truth, I think, from coming. to light. And now, Brandon, realistically, nothing's going to change. And parents, coast to coast, will send their kids to school tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
Starting point is 00:44:42 And in the vast, vast majority of cases, nothing will happen, God willing, nothing will happen. I mean, these school shootings are too common, but they are not overall common. You know, they're too common, but they're not common. The vast majority of students go to school every day and they're not hurt, they're not harmed,
Starting point is 00:45:01 and they're not in danger. But in an event like this, as you point out, it's terrorism. It will have a reverberating effect for at least the next few weeks as it's on the mind of students. I mean, I'll tell you the truth. I've got three kids.
Starting point is 00:45:15 They're 15, 14, and 12. I don't talk to them about this stuff. I just don't. I think there's very little they can do in the moment. The schools, of course, all do these drills. But I just think the more you discuss this kind of thing with a young person, the more you scare them. What do you think? Well, I think you have a point there, but I think it's two sides to it,
Starting point is 00:45:34 you know, right? Sometimes it could be very scary, but the scariest thing is then when the parents don't talk to the kids about it and they hear from an authority or to hear from the school and they make it all scary because they're not, they don't understand your kid the way you do, right? I understand what makes my kid afraid. I understand what could be a compassionate approach or make them feel a lot more confident, give them encouragement. I know how to talk to my son. So when I talk to my kids about things like this, I believe that they feel a lot more confident to hear it from dad, who was a former law enforcement officer. I was on the SWAT team. You know, he feels a lot more confident that I talk to him about these things.
Starting point is 00:46:09 When he go to school, you know, they kind of blank it over the situation. I remember when I was in school growing up in Texas and we do the tornado warning, you know, I was terrified because the teachers didn't sit and explain what is a tornado. How is this going to work? What really is going to happen? I mean, they scared the living daylights out of us when we did the tornado drill. So with having my dad speak to me made me feel a lot more confident because he can explain the nuances and we can go back and forward and he can answer questions. What I think parents should do and one thing I think you said Meganette was very important is that parents don't have to necessarily feel like every school is under threat at this point. In reality, it's not really that case.
Starting point is 00:46:46 This is one, there's probably hundreds of schools in Minneapolis. You know, when I look at my homeschool in Texas, we've been around for 100 years or so and no situation. has happened like this and no situation has ever happened in the city of Fort Worth, you know, as far as the Fort Worth school district. So majority of the schools are not going to experience this. However, I will tell teachers, take a step in the right direction at least talking to the principal and at least asking them what contingencies do you have in place. And if there is none, demand that the school do something about it. The parents can come together because my son is at a private school. Of course, they love to take some money from us. We can demand, since we're
Starting point is 00:47:26 we're spending money. And a lot of the parents that go to our school are affluent enough that we could pay for our own security as a group of parents. And so if the school doesn't want to provide it because they don't want to put it in the budget, the parents need to come together and say, we're going to hire personal private security to be at least the external portion of the school. They can be in plain clothes. They can be in unmarked cars. The fee for that is not that big of a deal. I mean, one officer maybe per day. I mean, he's probably getting paid $30 an hour. The school times is between X and Y. parents can come together. It's a thousand parents at some of these schools. Come together,
Starting point is 00:48:00 give a little bit of money, and let's do what we need to do as parents instead of waiting on these bureaucrats and these politicians to flap their feathers or what they get peacock a little bit before they actually do anything. Like we can do something. A lot of these retired cops would do it for a reduced rate. You know, they'd split the shift. One guy would take four hours. Another guy would take four hours. A lot of these retired cops, they have hearts of gold. They'd give you a lower rate. Yeah, they'd do for free. Just provide transportation, give me a lunch, you know, if I was in that position. Let me serve.
Starting point is 00:48:34 Let me have a purpose again. I think we should create a program for people who are retired military and police. Because what happens when you retire from the military or you retire from policing, many of these police officers, they don't live long after. And one reason is because they don't feel that they have a purpose. Many of them become a depressed. They commit suicide. They don't feel like they have a purpose anymore because their identity. has been saving lives and being active in the community. And then when they go home and they sit
Starting point is 00:49:00 on the couch, they don't have any friends, no camaraderie, they begin to go down a slippery slope at times. So in my personal opinion, I think that obviously you have to do a background check and make sure that they're not struggling with PTSD or anything like that. But you can have a contingency of getting in these law enforcement officers that can build that passion again to protect and serve something they've done their whole life. They would love and be honored. If I didn't have a lot to do, and I wasn't running all these companies, I would suit up and sit outside my son's school for hours for free. It's a great idea.
Starting point is 00:49:33 It would be my pleasure to protect my children from these maniacs that want to come kill him. Well, you'd have to add one other the thing, which is you have to give him immunity from, you know, lawsuits by parents who want to blame the security guard for whatever, which would be easy to do because without that, the guy's not going to sit there. So you're losing nothing by giving him that. but we need to do something to incentivize good guys to want to be present protecting these children. We've had Columbine, we've had Parkland, we've had Uvaldi, now we have this school, Ascension,
Starting point is 00:50:05 we had the school down in Louisiana, like it's too much, or Tennessee, Tennessee and New Orleans. Nashville, forgive me, I'm mixing them up. There have been so many. We need to get serious about where the threat actually is. There's a reason these soft targets can, continuously get targeted. And it's time we face that reality and do something about it. You guys, thank you all so much for being here. Really appreciate it. James, Liz, Brandon, all the best to you. We're going to stay on it after this break as we have now Carol Markowitz of the New York Post who has the identity of the shooter and we're learning more about him. That's next. That cookie calling your name at 3 p.m. The midnight fridge raids, the extra
Starting point is 00:50:47 slice of pizza you swore you would not eat. If you feel like your cravings control you, it's not willpower, it could be your gut crying for help. That's why I want to tell you about Just Thrive probiotic and their digestive bitters. See, modern diets often lack essential bitters compounds that manage appetite hormones like GLP1, the same hormone in those expensive weight management shots. Just Thrives digestive bitters give you the power of 12 clinically proven herbs that help your body break down food efficiency, efficiently, while supporting GLP1 production naturally. Controlled cravings, less bloat, steady energy, and comfortable digestion. Try Just Thrive Digestive Bitters and Just ThriveP probiotic today at Justthrivehealth.com.
Starting point is 00:51:33 And use code Megan for 20% off your first order. 20% off your first order. Justthrivehealth.com, code Megan, your body will thank you. Who's really on your side when it comes to your health? Insurance companies, bureaucrats, pharmacies that refuse valid prescriptions? Not so much. too many parts of our health care system are working against you blocking proven treatments jacking up prices making you jump through hoops that are unnecessary this is why i want to tell you about all family pharmacy an independent pharmacy that's on your side fighting for your medical freedom making it simple to get the treatments you trust without the insurance run around just order online a licensed doctor will review your request and your medication ships straight to your door it's fast simple and secure Right now, Ivermectin and Mavendazol are 25% off, starting at just $2 a capsule, and you can save
Starting point is 00:52:29 another 10% off with code Megan 10. Choose from over 200 medications, antibiotics, hydroxychloroquine, NAD plus, antivirals, and more, all with a prescription included. Go to all family pharmacy.com and use the code Megan 10 to save today. That's all family pharmacy, where your health and your choice matters. Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show. We're covering the tragic breaking news story out of Minneapolis, a shooting at a Catholic grade school there, K through 8. The children next door at the church attending morning mass that began at 815, and by
Starting point is 00:53:13 8.30, the shooter was firing at them, leaving multiple children dead, at least two, we've been told now, ages 8 and 10. and many more injured. There are multiple children in the hospital. We're told there are several critical, who are critically injured. I'm going to give you two sound bites and then I'm going to tell you about the shooter because we have independently confirmed who it is. You know, we don't say the names of shooters on this show because we declined to contribute to their infamy. But I will tell you that there is a picture circulating online. The man is very pale. He's said to be in his mid-20s. He has long red hair, and there is a question about whether he was experiencing
Starting point is 00:53:57 trans delusions about actually being a female and not a biological male, which is what he was. And we've confirmed that, too. We'll get to that in one second. First, I just want to get an update on the victims who are the ones that matter. Here is what the police said at a presser exactly one hour ago. Earlier today, just before 8.30 a.m., our city experienced an unthinkable tragedy. Minneapolis police officers responded to a report of a shooting at a mass that was happening at the Annunciation Roman Catholic Church on the block behind me. This worship service was marking the first week of school for children that are attending the Annunciation Catholic School. During the mass, a gunman approached on the outside, on the side of the building and began firing a rifle through the church windows, towards the children sitting in the pews at the mass.
Starting point is 00:55:05 Shooting through the windows, he struck children and worshippers that were inside the building. The shooter was armed with a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol. This was a deliberate act of violence. against innocent children and other people worshipping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible. God bless the first responders who have to deal with the carnage after the fact, which is just such a test of human strength,
Starting point is 00:55:47 that one of those cops and EMTs had to go in there and pick up a dead eight-year-old and ten-year-old who should have been moving on from mass to go to study the basics of math or reading and see their friends in PE and run around and enjoy the beautiful weather that we're having this time of year and instead their parents are grieving the kind of grief no parents should ever have to feel. The local hospital you heard Liz talk about it in our last hour going on the record in terms of what they have received there are multiple hospitals that have received victims but here's the latest i think this was this was out of henipin county we received a total of 11 patients from uh this incident
Starting point is 00:56:32 two of them were adult patients nine pediatric patients four of them required the operating room and up to this point in time there have been no fatalities related to any of those patients that were brought to our organization nine of the 11 patients were the pediatric patients were the I can't remember the exact ages. I believe it's six all the way up to 14. That's the range. They're all in our prayers, both the victims and the families. And now we are learning more about the shooter. He is said to have entered, or at least approach the back of the church from the outside with both, according to the authorities, a rifle and a handgun and open fire through the glass windows on the children inside, obviously shooting more than just children there.
Starting point is 00:57:21 As you heard, at least two adult victims were brought to that hospital alone, where we believe that there were as many as 20 victims total. The numbers have changed a bit as they obviously will continue to once the authorities get their arms around exactly who was hit and what hospitals they went to. We'll get a final number. This man was busy posting on his social media this morning. It appears to have populated on his YouTube feed, which has now been taken down, but we got there before it was during what would have been the time of the shooting, but obviously we have a large YouTube presence and you generally schedule your shows, your posts to appear when you want them to. You know, it's it's not that my executive producer is sitting there at five o'clock when he presses publish on YouTube. He sets the show. to publish at the time that it publishes every day. And that's very possible. In any event,
Starting point is 00:58:19 we have confirmed his name. It's not important. You don't need to know his name. And they've taken down his social media anyway, but we're going to show it to you. And this does appear to be somebody who was experiencing some sort of gender dysphoria. He has long red hair. He's very unattractive, which is not surprising. And he's, among other thing, posted an LGBT LGBTQ flag next to it he wrote Defend Equality We're not showing his picture as a reminder to my team Who's got his picture in a place where I can see it
Starting point is 00:58:56 But we're not going to put it up there Here is the notebook where he has Defend Equality on top of a pride flag there That's not the only thing There is clearly a desire There's another phrase by the way in his writings Why So Queer Us A lot of it doesn't make
Starting point is 00:59:14 sense, but why so queer, Q-U-E-E-R, like queer, us. And then there are writings over guns and over the magazines that one would insert in a gun that have a number of obvious possible motives that are referenced, like target, sorry, like, hold on, I'm trying to read my own writing. Where is your God? extra Jew gas Israel must fall kill Donald Trump R-I-P and tear
Starting point is 00:59:53 T-E-A-R, maybe it's tear I don't know what that means humanity is overrated nothing ever happens so he's clearly focused on looks like those who believe in God he's got another
Starting point is 01:00:10 like a target you would use and shoot at during target practice, which has a picture of Jesus Christ. Now it's starting to make some sense. The target he chose, what was on his mind. I think I mentioned one of the writings on either the guns or the ammo's read, fuck everything that, and then the next word is cut off. The beginning of it is stand. Like maybe the word was stands. We can only see S-T-A-N-F-E-E-E-E. everything that's Dan. And that's about all we've seen thus far, though we're going through it because we did manage to capture the two YouTube videos that he posted before YouTube took them down, which is
Starting point is 01:00:52 probably another indicator that, I mean, I've confirmed the name of the shooter, and this is the shooter's YouTube page. Potentially, there's another person by this name that is also obsessed with guns and killing children and pictures of Jesus and targets, but I'm going to go out there and say, are slim. Joining me now to discuss it all, Chad Ayers, founder of Proactive Response Group's founders are well-trained veteran SWAT team leaders with first-hand experience and hostage rescues and high-risk dignitary protection. And Joe Loras, retired police officer who's currently running for U.S. Congress in Tennessee to replace Mark Green. Gentlemen, thank you both so much for being here.
Starting point is 01:01:34 So let me start with you on it, Chad, because I mean, this is a situation. We only wish it had turned into a hostage situation where there could have been negotiation before the killing took place. But in this instance, like so many others, the shooter showed up and just started firing on defenseless targets. And now it appears he did seem intent on targeting this type of group. I mean, again, a target practice with a picture of Jesus. Where is your God? I guess like trying to test, right? If God would be there. I don't know what the specific motivation. were. But as I said at the top of our last hour, it does matter, but it's, it's secondary. You know, what, what appears you have during this is a sick mind, a very sick mind. Your
Starting point is 01:02:20 thoughts? I totally agree with you, Megan. And thanks for having me again. Just, I want to second what you say. My heart breaks for these families who are going through this today. Obviously, you know, this investigation is going to play out at Pro-At Response Group. This is what we do. I am sitting in a school right now training a school on how do you handle active shooter events. We were at a church. I know that you're a, you know, a lifelong devout Catholic. And I can't imagine sitting in that pew and this taking place. And all of a sudden, the worst case scenario happens. And so I'm not here today, obviously, to Monday morning quarterback these victims. But obviously, it is time that we start evaluating. I was talking to Joe earlier, evaluating how we are
Starting point is 01:03:06 training, are we giving valuable effective training on this type of situation? Because we cannot take a reactive approach. Megan, over the last month, you know, we have seen such an increase of events like this, active shooter events. And it's time we stop checking the box on this type of training and start providing valuable effective training, especially for our most precious that are sitting there, trying to have time to worship their God and pray and meditate, you know, in mass, and the worst case scenario happens. Yeah, Joe, I mean, look, this guy, we're going to figure out exactly what was driving him. I mean, we haven't seen one of these school shootings where the shooter wasn't on some sort of meds, nine times out of ten, an SSRI meant to attack depression, but obviously not helping.
Starting point is 01:03:55 I don't know what this guy's story is going to be, but I'm not surprised to see the trans ideology. We saw that in Nashville, Tennessee, too. And the FBI kept that secret from us. Joe Biden's FBI kept that secret from us for a year saying we couldn't handle it. It was like, okay, we can handle it. We need to know what sort of medical cocktail was this person on, if any. And the motivations that were like the tip, the tipping point, we'll look at that. But obviously, this guy had some sort of a break.
Starting point is 01:04:26 And unfortunately, the target today was Catholic children. So I don't even know where you begin other than to get a bunch of cops out there, retired cops with guns. Your thoughts on it. Megan, thanks for having me. I couldn't agree with you more. These delusional people are attacking our most vulnerable. Minneapolis, Minnesota as a whole, has universal background checks.
Starting point is 01:04:53 They have to have permits to purchase weapons, you know, gun, shotguns, anything. Where was that? This is exactly why I'm running for. Congress. This is exactly the problem that we have here in the United States. The soft on crime, defund the police, this is what happens. And I'm a father. And it scares me every day when I drop my daughter off at school, because could this be the day? And this is not the America that we should live in. This is not the America that I fought and bled for and buried my friends. Now, I'm with Chad. We need to be more proactive and call it what it is. This is delusion. The left is,
Starting point is 01:05:31 catering to this and this is the outcome. And we see that in all of this politics as, you know, all this hate that's going on because our country is so divided. We need to come together as Americans and remember what's important and protect our most precious resources, which is our children. I don't know how many times we need to be reminded, Chad, that our children are sadly a favorite target of these madmen. I know I was ticking off the names of the schools before we went to break. There are too many to remember. And right now, yet another piece coming through to us from his YouTube feed, one magazine literally has in, I assume, his handwriting for the children written on it.
Starting point is 01:06:13 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, at the bottom with an exclamation point. This is a very sick person, a sick, deranged. I want to say evil. What he did was evil, but I will reserve saying he was evil because what we find out in case after case is this is someone who had a break, who others around him saw it. It either was reported or it wasn't, but no one did anything about it. No one did anything about it. They just let him roam until he became someone else's problem. It absolutely pisses me off. It's upwards of 88% of these shooters. Someone in their home,
Starting point is 01:06:56 in the school, in their business, knew or suspected that they were going to do something like this and didn't report it. So we've got to do a better job of building a culture where I think there's whole snitch mentality is out there. Oh, I don't want to be a snitch. It's not snitching. It's called survival. And we have dead children, you know, right now at a church. So if we see these early warning signs, Joe said it, we have to do a better job as a community coming together, getting the help this person needs and preventing this before it even happens. You know, studies show, Megan, the majority of these events happen after something. type of break. So we're coming off of summer break, school starting back. After COVID, there was a
Starting point is 01:07:36 break. After Christmas break, these events for some reason, I can't pinpoint why happen. But with that, it's time we start evaluating the way we are training our students and our faculty and staff on what to do with our kids and these types of events. Now, I am not, again, I want to second, I am not here Monday morning quarterbacking these poor innocent children. But we have got to get out of this victim mentality of there's an active shooter event. Let's shove 26 kids at the corner of a room. You know, if the gunman makes it in there, or we just lay under our desk.
Starting point is 01:08:07 I had a call last week with the city administrator from Yuvalde. And I said, if the gunman comes into the classroom, where's all this targets at? They're in one spot. Why are we not giving our kids a chance to survive? If the gunman is inside the school, if the gunman is inside your house of worship, where's the gunman not at?
Starting point is 01:08:22 He's not outside. We need to pop in doors, windows, and getting kids out. That's a very good point. Like, run. Yeah, you're right. generally the drill is stay there hide that's really the drill it's not really get out it's not get out of the windows which they probably could in most circumstances and what i can't stand the word hide i'm not playing hide and go seek with a madman with a gun the quickest way to get terminated from pro
Starting point is 01:08:47 response group is to ever use the word hide in a class at that point really you've given up all hope if you can get away safely get away if you can't we want to shut lock barricade but you always have to be ready to fight. You know, we need to empower our teachers and give them the options. And what option and where the gunfire is, let them determine what course of action is going to give them the best chance to survive. See that run-hide fight training model says it's a linear approach. People think you have to go in that order. No, fighting may be the first course of action you have to take to survive and go home to see your families at the end of the day. But just like the fourth grade teacher at Rob Elementary School in Yuval Day, he was instructed by, you know, his administration
Starting point is 01:09:27 in an active shooter that day, tell your fourth graders to get under their desk and pretend it's nap time. And he lost every student in his room that day. First of all, that's borderline criminal, if you ask me. We have to give our kids a better chance to survive. Wow, that is dark, but important. I mean, I just, now you're inspiring me to discuss this with my children. I want to play for you, Joe, the reaction from Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who, I mean, she, Of course, she reacted with what we expected everyone on the left to react with. I'm seeing it all over Twitter right now, or X. Here she is.
Starting point is 01:10:07 It, of course, makes me think about guns and all the work we've done to ban these automatic rifles and to do something when it comes to the background checks and everything. And we keep getting thwarted. We were able to pass a limited measure on a bipartisan, basis, but not enough to stop something like this. And it just makes you think about that as well without knowing the details about how he got that gun. If the gun was legal, what kind of gun it was, but it was clearly one of these automatic rifles to be able to shoot that many kids so fast. All right. I'm sorry, but that's just not, that's not right. Chad wants to take it. That's
Starting point is 01:10:49 clearly not right. An automatic weapon. That's a machine gun. Literally nobody's saying the guy had a machine gun. Go ahead, Chad. Sorry, Joe. I want to make sure you understand, guys. This is all I do is I study these events. I cannot find a single active shooter event that's ever been committed with a fully automatic rifle in the United States ever. That's right.
Starting point is 01:11:10 And these are people that are sitting up in D.C. And again, they know nothing. That's right. And the worst school shooting of all time was Virginia Tech. I was there covering it in the moments after it happened. and that was conducted with handguns, semi-automatic handguns, which number in the hundreds of millions in our country. They will never be gone. No matter what law is passed, they will never, ever go away. These assault weapons bans that speak to banning automatic weapons.
Starting point is 01:11:41 Like, that's okay. That's not going to do anything like it didn't do anything in Minnesota. And you cannot effectively pass any sort of a ban on semi-automatic weapons. banning the guns is not the answer, even if you hate guns, even if you think everybody would comply and they'd go deposit their semi-automatic handgun in some like basket at the local fire department. Okay, they wouldn't. But even if you're in your imaginary world, they would, like some healthy portion would, there'd still be hundreds of millions running around. And the bad guys are the ones who get them. You would just be disarming the law abiding ones. Trust me, I am not some huge Second Amendment person. I'm a news person. who's watched more of these events than I care to admit. Banning the guns doesn't help. Putting red flags all over people who have serious mental health histories and trying to take their guns away, I'm with you.
Starting point is 01:12:36 And I'm actually more to the left on that issue than a lot of my conservative friends who are worried that kind of a red flag exploitation will take guns away from, you know, guys who are in the middle of an acrimonious divorce and witchy wives who are trying to hurt them. And I get that. that needs to be screened for, but I'm not as right wing as some of my friends are on it, but I'm telling you, gun bans, Amy, are not actually going to work, and therefore they're not going to protect the children. Go ahead, Joe. I can tell you as a retired undercover detective, I have bought guns on the street.
Starting point is 01:13:09 Criminals are criminals. They are not going to abide by the rules. Now, in Minnesota, they have very strict gun laws. But yet here we are, once again, we need to look at the cultural. you're not going to ban, and it goes to your point, Virginia Tech, it was a handgun. Fort Hood, an American soldier, an officer used handguns. We need to understand that there is a culture problem and we need to be more protective of who we are. But what it is really is we need to empower the police. President Trump is doing that, restoring nobility to the police. As a police officer, we are trained to run toward the danger. This is why I want to run for Congress. Like,
Starting point is 01:13:50 is horrible on all ends, but to hear legislatures just say, oh, we just need to have more legislation. No, you need to enforce what you have and go after these cowards because that's what they are. They are cowards. You are going and shooting children. It can pass another gun ban to make themselves feel better. It's not going to do anything. I want to bring in now to join us on the conversation, Gino Rofaro, co-founder and CEO of Safer Watch, technology experts. Safer Watch has helped nearly 4,000 schools across the U.S. improve their campus security with reporting apps and panic buttons and the like. And he's my guest now.
Starting point is 01:14:26 Gino, thank you for joining the conversation. Your thoughts on the immediate, I mean, like the Pod Save America guys, same thing. Like, we're not going to do anything about the guns and therefore, you know, they're feeling the frustration that I think we're feeling, but their entire game is to blame the gun. Yeah, well, thank you, Megan, for having me. And this is obviously another horrible tragedy that's taken place. And I absolutely agree by another coward, who shouldn't be anywhere near these types of weapons. But you're not going to be able to stop people from buying weapons or getting weapons. So you really have to focus on the threat, right?
Starting point is 01:15:06 Stopping these threats. And that's really why we developed Saferwatch. We started the company after the Pulse Nightclub shooting and really started focusing on schools after the parkland shooting. And to date, we've helped to stop and prevent 13 plans. school shootings. And that's all about proactive reporting that Chad mentioned, other people were mentioned, where those tips come into our platform. We are connected with hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the country where those tips, it's not just telling a teacher or telling a friend or telling someone. These come into our platform. They're documented.
Starting point is 01:15:38 They're recorded. Law enforcement is able to analyze and take action on these and it holds people accountable. And that's really what we're focused on is preventing these incidents from happening. in the first place. I want to show you something, Chad, that we just found on his YouTube feed. First of all, there's a picture he drew of the church. Well, what looks like a church, I should say. I don't know that it's the church, but it certainly looks like one. And it's, I mean, it's chilling to see this. He's pointing for the listening audience. You see at the top of the page, this is all hand drawn, what looks like an altar with a cross on top of it. And then like a, a, a line depicting that it would be the altar's edge. Then you see sort of the edge of it, and you see four long rows of pews. He's pointed to something, forgive me, it's too far away for me to see what exactly he's written above where he's pointing. But this looks very much like a church, Chad, and he appears to have had his plan really clear between that and the where is your God and the target practice with Jesus' picture in the middle.
Starting point is 01:16:47 Yeah, so obviously, Megan, the people that commit these attacks, there's this idea that it's just some person that wakes up this morning. Pullers a cup of coffee and says, I'm going to go shoot it up. No, they plan. They want to outdo the previous shooter. And so they're going to do their research. We have seen how, you know, these manifestos are written and they study. Look, there was a girl that was arrested last year that was planning an attack on her school on the 25th anniversary of Columbine. she wasn't even alive in 1996 or i think it was 96 when columbine happened she wasn't even alive
Starting point is 01:17:21 but her grandmother discovered these writings in her journal and you know she stopped it before it even happened so yes they do their research you know people who commit these attacks it's going to be interesting throughout this investigation in the coming couple hours was there an association did he grow up going to this church um did he go to school there growing up you know a lot of times there is some type of association. But, you know, having systems in place like Gino, you know, was talking about, having layers of protection are great. Key card access, reporting systems, panic bars, security guards, having layers of protection is great.
Starting point is 01:18:00 But we still have to be trained and we still have to have a plan. The most secured home in America, someone still tries to jump the fence once a week. It doesn't end up well for them. But having layers of protection is great. But we also need to make sure we are being situated. aware, you know, staying off of our cell phones, being aware of our surroundings. And it's almost like the old, like we said earlier, the old, if you see something, say something. But to go back earlier, Megan, what you said about the whole banning guns, here's the thing, guys, still handguns are still the number one gun used in active shooter events. And guess what? You can ban all the guns. If someone wants to commit a mass act of violence, they're going to do it. We saw it in New Orleans. We'll use a vehicle and run over a bunch of people. We'll use knives. But, you know, people talk about, oh, we don't have these events in Europe. Yeah, I get it. No shit. That's because you don't have guns over there, but you have an increase of knife attacks over there. So if someone wants to commit violence, they are going to do it. Look what the Boston Marathon bombers did with the homemade bombs. Exactly. They're going to do it. The other drawing that we have just pulled from his YouTube feed, he appears to have used some sort of a, it looks like some sort of a code language because the letters are recognizable, but they make no sense when strung together.
Starting point is 01:19:11 I don't understand. For example, and actually some of the letters look foreign to me, like it's not a real letter. Like it's more of a symbol. For example, there's something that reads K-O-R-A-3, then a backward 3, then T-0, then 33-K-O-H-4, backward N. I'm just pointing out to you, it's gibberish to the rest of us. I don't know what this person's code was. But underneath these writings is a hand-drawn picture of what appears to be him. It's got the long hair, and he had long hair, and he's got a rifle, like an AR-15 looking gun on his backs along across his back, and he's looking at himself in the mirror.
Starting point is 01:19:52 And the reflection is a devil. The reflection is a demon with multiple horns coming out of his head, four horns, two on each side, and he looks evil. He looks truly demonic. It's a self-portrait, obviously, and it's not a huge shot. Gino, I mean, that's how he saw himself. And the celebration of killing kids, you know, he was excited to write down how he was going to get, he was going to get these kids looking forward to targeting them for the win. That's one of the marks on his ammo, FTW. We showed the ammo where he was specifically saying for the kids. He's, you know, humanity's overrated. This is, this all could have been written by, we don't say the names of the shooters on the show, but it could have been written by, but it could have been written by. the Sandy Hook Shooter in particular, who is completely depressed, saw himself as a demon. And I mean, to way oversimplify it is they are in the throes of a deep depression and madness. And they want others to hurt as well. They want others. Other lives are absolutely meaningless to them.
Starting point is 01:21:01 So they can't be persuaded. They can't actually be therapist. They need to be locked up. Yeah, and Megan, about 90% of these cases, there are known warning signs that do exist. And it really comes down to what was reported, who was reported to, what actions were taken, right? Because these tragedies, they can be prevented. And if you go back to all the way back to the Pulse Nightclub shooting, the coworker who worked with that individual, knew that he was buying ammunition, knew that he was buying weapons, knew that he had a plan for something and never. reported it's anyone. And again, that's why these systems are in place to be able to easily report something, right? You know, if you hear kind of after these strategies, you're going to hear chiefs of police or sheriffs go on television and say, it's so important if you hear
Starting point is 01:21:50 something, say something, report suspicious activity, call 911. No one's going to call 911 about a potential concern that they have about someone. So the more tools that we have available for people to easily share and report information, the better. And the more likely we are to actually get ahead of this and prevent and stop these cowards and these mentally ill individuals from committing these acts of mass violence? You know, can we spend a minute on the trans thing, Chad, because, you know, I've, look, I don't mean to, not all people who have gender dysphoria are violent or are going to commit violence, but now we've seen it in a couple of cases.
Starting point is 01:22:27 You know, we saw it in Nashville, Tennessee, where it was a young girl who identified as male. And now we see it here with this biological man who we are told now there's more reporting coming in that he identified as a woman. Some reporting out there that he began identifying as trans as a minor. And the name was changed. Again, we don't do names here, but from the male sounding name to a female sounding name, the hair is very long and feminine in looking. This is, I'm sorry, but this is going to happen more and more. It's, there's a medical cocktail that these people get. There's a system that affirms a delusional set of beliefs. And there's an unwillingness within the mental health community to look at underlying
Starting point is 01:23:17 mental health issues for these kids who are suffering. I'm not calling this guy a kid. I mean, I'm speaking generally now. They just want to say affirm, affirm, affirm, without a possible mental illness. And here's the thing, Megan, there's no doubt. Everyone that commits one of these attacks is in some type of mental crisis. Everyone. And so what you just said, the word I love, why are we coddling these people? Why are we saying, you know, affirming them?
Starting point is 01:23:48 At the end of the day, you're born male or you were born female, and that's what you're going to be the rest of your life. So why is it? I don't know where those balloons came from. But it's our beautiful computers. But sorry, I got thrown off. But again, it's time that we stop, you know, coddling this and affirming and, oh, no, we can't talk to them about their mental health because this is just who they are. No, that's not true.
Starting point is 01:24:13 They need help. We need to get the help immediately. And honestly, the education system is backing these people. They're throwing it down our kids' throat and affirming, you know, you can be in elementary school now and you walk in. You're not seeing the American flag and saying your prayer or having your moment of silence. You're walking into classrooms that have pride flags and everything else in there. Again, identify with whatever you want. Don't start throwing it down my kids' face and don't start saying it's okay.
Starting point is 01:24:40 This is normal because it's not. Yeah. Joe, I mean, it's like that'll be the last thing. The left will willingly take on about this case. Like I said, Joe Biden's FBI kept a secret in the case of the Nashville shooter for a year. I mean, we were among the first to reveal large portions of what the FBI found. We got that exclusively and brought it to the audience. Stephen Crowder did great reporting on it.
Starting point is 01:25:04 He had some exclusives early on. But there have been multiple cases now. Here, my team is just sending me a couple here. All right, Colorado Springs shooter was non-binary in November 22. It was a gay nightclub. Five people were killed. The Nashville school shooter, I mentioned, a transnational. a so-called declared trans person, where they shot multiple individuals, multiple children.
Starting point is 01:25:33 Aberdeen, there was a shooter who was trans. 2018 went into right aid and shot six coworkers. There are more. Denver school shooter was trans. 2019. They killed at least one person, one person in 2019 in the school and in the Denver area charter school. There was one in Iowa where we believe it was the case.
Starting point is 01:25:57 Trans or gender fluid shooter went in and shot a sixth grader and a principal who were killed. Like, I could keep going. And I will tell you, the left and their entire capture of the medical system does not allow any inquiry into the mental illness that these people are suffering. You're considered a bigot if you say it's mental illness, Joe. Yeah, you need to really call it what it is. it is a mental illness, the easiest way that is being preached to us from our governments is if you see something, say something like Chad said, if we don't know as law enforcement, we can't look at it.
Starting point is 01:26:35 There are telltale science when we go through these investigations that there were hints and dossiers and writings and pictures and all of these things. But what's important is how did they get the gun? When we start looking at all of that stuff, there are checks and balances in place that we already have. We don't need to be focused on that. We need to be focused on the people. What is going on? And you're right. I'm called a bigot if I tell you that you're mentally ill. I just need to say what needs to be said. You couldn't even say that and keep your video up on YouTube up until recently. If you said a trans person has a mental illness, they would demonetize
Starting point is 01:27:14 you and possibly strike the entire video up until only very recently. We're not allowed. We haven't been allowed to have that conversation. And that's given them power to do what they want to do. They want to hurt us. And this is how they do it. They have a mental illness and no pill is going to fix that. And when they just start shoving pills and they compound on each other, this is what happens. So we need to look at what the underlying causes, like Chad said, this is an illness. This is an epidemic. And it's not about the gun. It's about the illness and somebody wanting to kill our most precious resource, which is our children. Because you notice they didn't walk into a police station and do that.
Starting point is 01:27:59 I've never heard of that. They don't walk onto a military base, generally speaking, to do that because there are people there that can defend themselves. So what do I do? If I want to make a name for myself and be remembered like Butler, Pennsylvania, I'm going to go and I'm going to cause like this thing. And then the media is going to report it and everybody will know my name. I commend you, Megan, for not releasing the name because that just gives the next one more power. They don't need to be remembered. Who cares? Who cares what his name is? It's irrelevant. Who gives two dams?
Starting point is 01:28:30 I want to know the name of the children. Yeah, exactly right. We don't care what this person's name is. We are not going to make this person famous or infamous at all. This is a motivation. We've seen Gavin DeBecker, his entire firm is devoted to trying to stop people from getting stalked and hurt. and they're very against news organizations naming these shooters. It doesn't take much not to do it. Really, you're not losing anything but not hearing it. I'm telling you what you need to know. It was a male name.
Starting point is 01:28:55 Apparently, according to the next order, who tweeted out the paperwork on X, there's legal paperwork showing that he changed it from that male name to like a very similar sounding female name. And, you know, he's obviously suffering with this ideology like so many of these others were. I'm going to show you something else that we've pulled from the YouTube page. It does not show him, so I wouldn't be breaking my rule. But it does show this guy scrolling through his notebook, which we've been showing you pictures of. And for the listening audience, you are going to see these church pew images.
Starting point is 01:29:29 And then he knifes the book. Watch. It catches y'all up to anything else they read. So putting a picture of himself as a demon. Oh, you stupid-ass bitch, you corny. motherfucker. Ha, ha, nice. This is the church pews pointing.
Starting point is 01:29:57 Oh, God. It's a knife. Myself, myself. You can hear him saying, kill myself, which he also did. the fact that this guy was roaming around, Chad, among us. I don't know. It's, you can't catch them all. It's a big country, but you and I both know there's going to be people who knew.
Starting point is 01:30:28 There's no doubt. Go ahead, Chad. Yeah, there's, there's no doubt at all. Do you have me, Megan? I've got just your name, but I can hear you, so keep going. Oh, I guess. Something's going on. So, you know, someone's going to come out with,
Starting point is 01:30:44 within the next 30 minutes. And look, we saw this at the San Bernardino shooting. Remember the Apple iPhone case where the husband and wife pair went to their company Christmas party and shot it up? And they interviewed neighbors after the event. And what they said was this. I knew something was up with them. They had U-Haul trucks backing up.
Starting point is 01:31:04 They were working on things in the middle of the night in their garage. Their actions were not the same as everyone else's in the neighborhoods. And the news anchor said, did you say anything? Why didn't you report this? And you know what they said? The people who committed this attack were from a different country, spoke a different language, had a different skin tone. And I did not want to be labeled as a racist.
Starting point is 01:31:25 It wasn't their religion or where they were from that was concerning. It was their actions. That's what was concerning. So, again, we've got to get away from that and realize where we are as a society. You know, when we started this company, my goal was to be out of business one day. And I'm sure Gino and Joe would say the same thing. I'm a very select few of people that want to be out of business because these events stop happening. That's not the case.
Starting point is 01:31:54 Again, we have to stop coddling to these people and stop cradling and being so sensitive. Call it what it is. This is a maniac. And we have to do a better job as a society. And thank you, Megan, for stepping up. We can't get through to them, Gino. I am not assuming bad faith from. the people on the left. I'm actually really not. I think on this issue, as Americans, we really are
Starting point is 01:32:17 united. We all want it to stop. I think the left very much wants it to stop, and I think the right very much wants us to stop. We're just diametrically opposed in what we think the solution is. And, you know, like Gavin Newsom just tweeted out, we cannot even make it through the first week of school without mass shootings. Everyone believes that. Everyone is also disgusted and exasperated at that. We share in his frustration and lament. And then he says, and the GOP will continue to do absolutely nothing while our kids are being gunned down. This is sick. And I believe I share that exact sentiment if you replace GOP with Dems. I mean, I feel exactly as he does, except I see his party as the, at the core of the problem because they won't,
Starting point is 01:32:57 his side will only deal with guns. They will only talk about guns in the wake of this. They won't talk about the trans ideology and what the medical profession will and won't do when they encounter somebody who says they're suffering from gender ideology problems. They won't deal with mental illness. They won't deal with institutionalization. They won't look at Trump's order, executive order, trying to make it easier to institutionalize someone who's having a serious mental health problem without having to go through 25 different steps to get them there. They'll just say he's an authoritarian fascist. Whereas there are people who do need to be locked up. And this one's for you, Gino, because I've interviewed, I played this for our audience not long ago.
Starting point is 01:33:36 I've interviewed moms who say, I know I'm raising the next sociopath. I know. I know. No, my son or daughter, they'll say, is a sociopath. They killed the family cat. They tortured the family hamster, like terrible stuff. And what they all said to me, Gino, was there's no place for me to go. Unless they break a law and I put them in the criminal justice system where they get arrested, which no loving parent wants, there's no place that will take them. Most therapists will say, I can't therapy your child out of sociopathy. Most facilities won't take them because they realize that this is a loss cause, too.
Starting point is 01:34:14 And my own solution for whatever it's worth for all these years has been we need a facility to which a loving parent or neighbor or even caring judge would willingly send the next school shooter who hasn't yet committed the crime. So we're a little in the minority report field where you're, you know, in advance of the crime, there's sort of a punishment, if you will. But it's to protect other people's civil liberties based on evidence, based on evidence of a mental break. So far, the only facility that we have in the United States
Starting point is 01:34:44 that anybody has pointed out to me is in Michigan. It's called Nemours. And that's the only one. And with all due respect to that institution, it's said not to be all that great. We need money to build a new facility that would be half prison. Yes, I'm just going to say it,
Starting point is 01:34:58 in half mental health institution. But the point is the person would not have their freedom. And the rest of our children could live. It's not a solve all. But we need more of these and less of these knee-jerk ban the guns, meaningless, senseless, waste of time convos. Yeah, Megan, we do need more resources focused on prevention, right? We know these threats are out there. As you just mentioned, even the own parents know these warning signs, right?
Starting point is 01:35:33 And that's really why we develop Saferwatch to give people a way to easily report information. directly, and that information goes to law enforcement. It goes to mental health support as well, because a lot of times we need to take additional steps prior to the crisis, right? They talk about this left of bang, right, situations. When you are able to report something easily and you're able to report something sometimes anonymously, that information ultimately ends up resulting in an investigation. And then the great work that law enforcement does behind the scenes that are they're doing this 24-7 we get tips and threats that come into our platform every single day from just like that video you showed on YouTube that that highlights
Starting point is 01:36:20 different threats and different concerns this content is out there people are sharing these threats people are sharing their sick views and more needs to be done to get ahead of this more resources need to be spent on prevention obviously the hardening of the schools the training the technology to be in place when these active assailants happen is also critical because you're not going to be able to stop them all. So we clearly have to be prepared for these situations. But at the same time, how many more shootings do we need? We know this is taking place. We need more attention and more resources to focus on prevention. And that's really what's the number one thing you would need. Like, Gino, if President Trump said to you, Gino, I want you to
Starting point is 01:37:02 solve this problem. What was the number one thing you would tell him you need? well there's systems that are in place today where when there is a threat that's reported essentially what we do is we start tracking that the behavior right like the behavioral threat assessments that are being taken place so when those early warning signs are coming in what you do is you ultimately have to track those behaviors and you have to track those individuals and you have to track not just in that moment but over time and it's a combination between parents It's a combination between SROs, mental health, mental health professionals, people in the community, and all of that goes into a database, and they're able to track the behaviors of this individual. Not everyone's a bad person, but when they do start sharing these obvious signs, these obvious warning signs, they do need to be tracked.
Starting point is 01:37:51 Let me tell you something. I, as a public figure, who do come under threat from time to time as part of the job, sadly, I have a security team. And they monitor all my social media and mailings that we receive. etc. And they do what you're doing right now, for me, without even telling me about it. They only elevate it to my level if it, if it's necessary, you know, if I actually do need to know. There's a specific individual. But there are, unfortunately, a bunch of people they track because they've saber rattled. They've gotten a little odd. They've gotten disturbingly odd. And they do exactly what you're saying. And I pay for that service, right? And it's a very worthwhile service for me.
Starting point is 01:38:27 What you're saying is your organization does this for everyone, for kids, for schools, as so long as people call in the threat. Like, someone's got, you know, I have people proactively monitoring my stuff for these threats, but you need to be told. Someone's got to call your organization, and then you take it on the same way my security team takes it on. Exactly. And we also provide the software and the tools for the professionals to actually track and provide additional information to these systems. So it's not just a matter of a one-time reporting. It's actually following the behavior, following if the person has not shown up to school, their grades have failed, et cetera, et cetera. There's a whole long list of different things that go into potential threats and potential change in behavior that the FBI teach and secret service teach in terms of certain threat prevention methods.
Starting point is 01:39:20 But yes, when people show these early warning signs and say threatening things, make drawling. of churches and have knives that are stabbing the pages, these things need to be paid attention to and not just pay attention to, but they need to be followed over time. And these incidents can be prevented. We've actually helped to stop and prevent. Can you give me the way people can contact your organizations? I guarantee you there are people listening right now who have somebody in mind potentially. So if you go to our website, saferwatch app.com or you can download the safe for watch app. You can actually report anywhere in the United States. You can report for free download our application.
Starting point is 01:39:54 You can report a tip. Did you say safer watchout.com? Safe for watch app. App. App. Or you can download it on iOS or Android. You can download it for free. And there's different categories where you can go in.
Starting point is 01:40:09 It's everything from a school shooting threat to concerning behavior to mental health concerns. And you can report that information on there. And ultimately that does get to the local law enforcement agencies and gets routed to the correct professionals. And it's all documented. Can you do it anonymously? if you don't want to put your name. Okay, that's great because a lot of people don't want to put their name with it.
Starting point is 01:40:27 I saw you shaking your head yes in response to a lot of what he said, Chad. Oh, I totally agree. And with that, as we're looking at the training for schools, we've got to get out of this like check the box training, right? And saying, yeah, our teachers get a seven minute video at the beginning of the year. They're good to go. Seven minutes does not prepare you. A seven minute, 25 minute video does not prepare you for the worst case scenario. And Gino and Joe have both said this. We've got to start by training our teachers and students. How do we recognize the early warning signs? What are our response options?
Starting point is 01:41:03 And then how do we stop massive bleeding upward of 60% of the fatalities and active shooter events would be alive today if someone in the school or the workplace knew how to stop their bleeding? So having your teachers trained, having bleeding control kits on site is huge. But it's time we start investing. into the lives of our teachers and not just saying, you know, you know, listen, Megan, they do fire drills once a month in schools. You want to know the last time a kid was killed in a school fire? It was 1956, I believe. So, you know, it's time we start investing into the lives of our, you know, our faculty and our most precious those students. Guys, thank you. Chad, Joe, Gino, really appreciate
Starting point is 01:41:43 you guys joining us on this afternoon. What a day. All the best to you. Thank you. Thank you for having, Megan. Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends, and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online on-campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic personal and professional goals.
Starting point is 01:42:27 With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. private, Christian, affordable. Visit gCU.edu. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Serious XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megan Kelly Show on Triumph, a serious XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura.
Starting point is 01:43:11 I'm back, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly. Megan Kelly. You can stream the Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the Serious XM app. It has ad-free music, coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast, and more. Subscribe now, get your first three months for free.
Starting point is 01:43:35 Go to SiriusXM.com slash MK Show to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK Show and get three months free. Offer details apply. We don't have the problem to solve, but we have a lot of potential solutions sitting right there, sitting right there asking us to choose them. I've got to be honest, I don't have a ton of hope that there's going to be some bipartisan effort to do any of the stuff we've discussed today. We have to forge on without them.
Starting point is 01:44:08 We have to just do these things without them. and they can continue trying to get gun bans passed, and that'll make them feel better, and I guess that's fine for them. But we have to make these changes on team sanity, or we're going to see a lot more just like these, especially what Brandon Tatum was saying with the cops and the former military, protecting the schools.
Starting point is 01:44:28 Call your school. Find out who's protecting it this week and next, and for the foreseeable future. God bless all of you and our children, too, our children too, in our country. God bless America. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show, no BS, no agenda, and no fear.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.