A gunman in central Florida, USA, killed a woman on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), returned to the scene and killed a TV journalist covering that death, and then fatally shot a nine-year-old girl nearby before he was arrested, authorities said.
Spectrum News 13 in Orlando identified the slain reporter as 24-year-old Dylan Lyons. One of the station’s photographers, Jesse Walden, was “critically injured” in the shooting, the station said.
Authorities have not publicly identified the girl and woman who were killed in the deadly rampage that spanned three locations.
The suspect, 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, has been taken into custody, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said.
His arrest ended a spate of violence that stretched several hours in a neighbourhood, just west of Orlando.
“No one in our community – not a mother, not a nine-year-old, (and) certainly not news professionals – should become the victim of gun violence in our community,” Orange County Sheriff John Mina said.
In addition to the three killings, the suspect is also accused of injuring the girl’s mother.
Investigators are trying to determine the motive behind the attacks.
“We really don’t know what was in the mind of this suspect,” Mina said. “Hopefully at some point that he’ll talk to us about what his motives were.”
How the deadly rampage unfolded
The first shooting was reported around 11am on Wednesday (3am Thursday AEDT).
A woman in her 20s was killed inside a vehicle on Hialeah Street in Orange County. That woman is believed to be an acquaintance of the suspect, Mina said.
Later in the day, after that vehicle had been towed, the gunman returned to the area and shot two Spectrum News 13 journalists who were covering the woman’s killing, Mina said.
The suspect then entered a home on a nearby street and shot a mother and her nine-year-old daughter, the sheriff said.
Both were taken to a hospital, where the child died and the mother was in critical condition on Wednesday evening, authorities said.
“We don’t know why he entered that home,” the sheriff said.
Investigators also are looking into whether the suspect knew that the Spectrum News 13 employees were journalists.
Authorities said they believe Moses had no connection to the journalists nor the mother and her daughter.
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Investigators quickly identified Moses as a suspect in the first shooting and were following leads when the TV journalists were shot around 4pm (8am Thursday AEDT), the sheriff said.
The two journalists were shot in or around their vehicle, Mina said.
“That vehicle was almost exactly in the same spot as the vehicle was from the homicide this morning,” Mina said. “It’s unclear why exactly they were targeted.”
The journalists’ vehicle “didn’t look like a typical news vehicle with a lot of markings on it,” Mina said.
‘Every reporter’s absolutely worst nightmare’
Spectrum News 13, a CNN affiliate, posted a tribute on its website titled “Remembering Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons.”
“He took his job very seriously. He loved his career. He loved what he did,” fellow reporter Josh Miller said in the tribute. “He loved the community, telling the stories of people, reporting on the news, and he was just passionate about what he did.”
Spectrum News 13 also thanked employees of competing news outlets for rushing to their colleagues’ aid.
“Some of our competitors … rushed to the aid of our colleagues, and we want them to know how much we appreciate them,” anchor Tammie Fields said. “Because when danger was happening, they could have run the other way. But apparently they ran right over to our crews and helped.”
Luana Munoz, a reporter for CNN affiliate WESH, described an emotional scene after her fellow journalist died. Her colleagues had left the crime scene on Hialeah Street moments before the shooting, according to the station.
“This is every reporter’s absolutely worst nightmare. We go home at night afraid that something like this will occur and that is what happened here,” Munoz said. “We have learned that a fellow reporter has died while covering a shooting.”
“There are members of his family here, along with his fiancée, who are incredibly distraught tonight,” Munoz said.
“There are other media people who are corralled together and standing in solidarity tonight as one of our own has passed.”
Spectrum News 13‘s parent company, Charter Communications, released a statement following the attack.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and the other lives senselessly taken today,” the statement reads.
“Our thoughts are with our employee’s family, friends and co-workers during this very difficult time. We remain hopeful that our other colleague who was injured makes a full recovery. This is a terrible tragedy for the Orlando community.”
In a statement, CNN called the shooting “an absolute tragedy” and noted that the organisation “stands with our affiliate partner, Spectrum News 13, and will support them and the families of these journalists in any way we can.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre released a statement, saying, “Our hearts go out to the family of the journalist killed today and the crew member injured in Orange County, Florida, as well as the whole Spectrum News team.”
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