22 February 2023 | CPJ
TV journalist shot in Pine Hills, Florida
Shooting
Local broadcast news reporter Dylan Lyons, 24, was fatally shot on February 22, 2023, in Pine Hills, Florida, near Orlando, while covering another fatal shooting that occurred that morning.
A 9-year-old girl was also killed in the shooting; her mother and Jesse Walden, a Spectrum News 13 photojournalist, were injured, the station reported. A 20-year-old woman was killed during the morning shooting.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said during a February 22 news conference that the journalists were shot “in or near their vehicle,” on Hialeah Street in Pine Hills at approximately 4 p.m. after the gunman returned to the scene of the morning shooting and opened fire. Mina said it was unclear if the suspect knew that Lyons and Walden were members of the media, and stated that their vehicle “does not really look like a news vehicle to [him],” but added that there was clearly a photographer there. The sheriff said it was “possible” that the suspect mistook the journalists for law enforcement officials but said that he wasn’t able to say conclusively at that moment.
The suspect, 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, was detained nearby shortly after the shooting, the sheriff said. After he was detained, homicide detectives identified Moses as the suspect in the homicide from earlier in the day.
Mina told reporters that he believed that Moses was an acquaintance of the woman killed in the morning attack, but detectives did not believe that Moses was connected to the journalists or the mother and child.
Lyons had worked as a broadcast reporter at Spectrum News 13 for eight months and covered stories including local crime and Hurricane Ian.
Spectrum News 13 is part of a local news network owned by the corporate broadcaster, Charter Communications.
Prior to working at Spectrum News 13, Lyons worked as a reporter and anchor at WCJB TV20 in Gainesville, Florida, according to his LinkedIn page and an obituary published by the local television station.
Read the original article: https://cpj.org/data/people/dylan-lyons/
