Harris-Perry: There are kids living in fear all over the country

>> you are a professor, and the thing we haven't talked about this, the other piece of this dynamic, there's obviously the law enforcement , the parents, the children, the teachers who were in the classroom, so who, you know, in terms of the role they represent in the lives of students, and in the situation like this, we certainly don't know any of the details, but one can assume a teacher in that position seeing someone with a gun coming in to do harm to a school, i can only imagine how a teacher sort of deals with that, and many of these cases, people end up being heroes and play a pivotal role. we get more details, and the role that the teachers in this elementary school played, especially with children that young.

>> there's no question about that. because they are so young, you feel an even greater obligation to try to protect these vulnerable children. let's talk about what the real deal here is. when we see something like this, we're talking about an act. let's be careful here. i mean, the technical definition of terror. this is something where we recognize no noncombatants. gu into a school, and everybody is vulnerable. we're not talking about ethnicity here or -- we're talking about ink baiting at the heart of american culture is an addiction to violence that renders us all victims on any given day of random acts of being pushed in front of a subway, of being shot in an elementary school , and the authority figure of the teacher, the psychic scar on a child is even doubled. not not just are you being -- the teacher is being attacked as well. that destroys the psychic infrastructure of a child for how many years to believe that no one can actually protect them?

>> melissa, you are a professor as well, so i'm sure you have thoughts on this.

>> yes. i guess part of what i was thinking is that point was so well taken. both chris's story about the trauma that you undoubtedly see as a result of this, no matter what ensdz up being true about injuries to children, physical injuries, the trauma that the young people are going to experience is extreme, that this community is going to experience, but i want to pause because what an opportunity like this is, as horrifying as this moment is, is to remind us that there are children living in cities where they are experiencing this kind of trauma on a regular basis, and you talk about it briefly when you were talking about guns and growing up in washington d.c. , living in new orleans my daughter goes to chicago in the summers. the fact is that that sense of vulnerability and violence and the post traumatic stress that it generates for young people , who live in these conditions, so we're going to see it in this hyper-focused, horrible moment of this tragedy, but the fact is that we are seeing it for a whole generation of people all across this country.

>> a very fair and well made point. w nbc is reporting that an fbi spokesman in connecticut says fbi agents are on the scene offering assistance and support to state and local authorities . the fbi is defefring all comments about the incident and investigation to local authorities . we are also getting word of two news conferences within the hour. one from the danbury hospital and one center state police . we will have more information after