Slain journalist mourned as newsrooms face more risk
A day after a journalist was killed on an assignment near Orlando, Florida, his colleagues were in shock and grief. And experts in journalism said it was a warning sign that the world of local news might be growing more dangerous as reporters rush to cover the daily drumbeat of gun violence.
The killing of the reporter, Dylan Lyons, as he covered a fatal shooting that happened hours earlier, was a “rude awakening that danger still exists in our industry, and we have to confront that and persevere through that,” said Erik Sandoval, a reporter at WKMG-TV in Orlando. Sandoval recalled working many nights with Lyons, 24, who was an intern at the station in 2019.
“He wanted to do this, and he had a bright future ahead of him and the fact that that future was taken away from him breaks my heart,” Sandoval said in an interview Thursday.
The authorities said they still were trying to piece together what led to the fatal shooting Wednesday of Lyons, a reporter at Spectrum News 13, as well as two others, Nathacha Augustin, 38, and a 9-year-old girl, T’yonna Major.
The violence began around 11 a.m. in Pine Hills, a suburb about 5 miles west of downtown Orlando, when a man, later identified as Keith Melvin Moses, 19, fatally shot Augustin as she sat in a car with Moses’ cousin, according to the Orange County sheriff, John Mina. It was not clear why Moses shot Augustin, the sheriff said.
About five hours later, detectives had interviewed witnesses and “cleared the scene,” Mina said, but local journalists were still there preparing news reports. Moses returned to the neighborhood and shot Lyons and Jesse Walden, a News 13 videographer, as they sat in a vehicle together, the sheriff said.
Minutes later, Moses walked into a nearby house and fatally shot T’yonna and wounded her mother, Mina said.
The condition of the mother, whose name has not been released, was unclear. Phyllis Turner, T’yonna’s great-aunt, told NBC News that the 9-yearold was “the apple of her parents’ eye; she was just a true joy to them.”
It was unclear whether the gunman knew that the reporter and videographer were journalists. Mina said that their vehicle “didn’t have any markings that stood out,” and that the gunman had passed by “another news vehicle.”
Journalists from WFTV in Orlando witnessed the shooting and then rendered aid to Lyons and Walden until deputies arrived, Mina said, praising them for their bravery.
Walden, 29, who had been in critical condition Wednesday, remained hospitalized Thursday, Mina said. Mina emphasized that investigators did not know the suspect’s motive or the nature of his connections to the victims. He said that Moses was not speaking to the police.
Moses, who had a Glock handgun when he was arrested, was charged with one count of murder in the killing of Augustin. Mina said that he was “100% confident” that Moses would also be charged in the murders of Lyons and T’yonna.
Moses’ criminal history includes charges of aggravated battery, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft and gun violations, Mina said.
The shooting jolted journalists in Florida and across the country, reminding them of the dangers they might encounter covering gun violence in their communities. The morning news meeting at WKMGTV was like a “big therapy session,” Sandoval said, as station members wept and mourned their fallen colleague.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Lyons had distinguished himself as a driven young reporter determined to succeed in television news, colleagues said. He joined Spectrum News 13 in July 2022 and had worked before that at WCJB TV20 in Gainesville, Fla., according to the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists, which had given Lyons an award in 2020 for his coverage of a local congressional race.
The news of his death on the job punctuated a “new and alarming” increase in threats, harassment, and violence against local reporters in the United States, said Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University.