News crew shot, one dead, while reporting on Orlando woman’s murder; 9-year-old girl also killed: sheriff
One journalist was shot dead and another wounded in an Orlando neighborhood on Wednesday as they covered a homicide from earlier in the morning.
The second shooting occurred at 4:05 p.m., hours after police had finished covering the 11:15 a.m. shooting death of a woman in her 20s, Orange County Sheriff John Mina told reporters Wednesday evening. The alleged shooter opened fire on a reporter and photographer from Spectrum News 13.
“Tragically, one of the news 13 employees has passed,” Mina said. The other one was being treated at the hospital. He did not give their names.
The suspect, 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, then allegedly went into a home and shot a woman and her 9-year-old daughter. The girl also died, Mina announced Wednesday.
He said there was no indication as to the motive for any of those shootings. Moses was armed with a handgun, Mina said.
What Mina called a “horrible day for our community and our media partners” began unfolding at 11 a.m., when police got the first call about a woman who’d been shot “and succumbed to her injuries,” he told reporters.
Detectives interviewed neighbors, collected evidence and developed leads on a possible suspect, Mina said, then cleared the scene.
They were long gone hours later when the department received a call at 4:05 p.m. about a second shooting at the same location, and a third nearby. Responders found two men near a vehicle who turned out to be a News13 reporter and photographer “who were on the scene to cover the homicide from this morning,” Mina said. The sheriff noted that they were parked in the exact spot where the car involved in the morning’s homicide had been.
After shooting them, the suspect went into a nearby home and shot a woman and her 9-year-old daughter, Mina said. The daughter later died, and the woman was “fighting for her life,” he added. While Moses was allegedly acquainted with the woman he’d gunned down in the morning, he had no connection to the reporters or the woman and child whose home he invaded.
Moses has a “lengthy criminal history” that includes gun charges, aggravated battery, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft charges, Mina said.
“I want to acknowledge what a horrible day this has been for our community and our media partners,” Mina said. “I work closely with all of you and know many of you and know the very difficult job that you do and also the very important job that you do for our community and for law enforcement.”
