A day after a journalist was killed on assignment near Orlando, Florida, his colleagues were in shock and grief. And journalism experts said it was a warning sign that the world of local news could become more dangerous as reporters scramble to cover the daily drumbeat of gun violence.
The murder of the reporter, Dylan Lyons, while covering a deadly shooting that happened hours earlier, was a “gross awakening that danger still exists in our industry, and we need to face that and push through.” said Erik Sandoval, a reporter with WKMG-TV in Orlando. Mr Sandoval recalls working many nights with 24-year-old Mr Lyons, who was a trainee at the station in 2019.
“He wanted to do this and he had a bright future ahead of him and to have that future taken away from him breaks my heart,” Sandoval said in an interview on Thursday.
Authorities said they were quiet trying to figure out what led to the fatal shooting on Wednesday from Mr. 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, about five miles west of Orlando, when a man, later identified as Keith Melvin Moses, 19, fatally shot Ms. Augustin while she was in a car with Mr. Moses’ cousin, according to Orange County Sheriff John W. Mina. It was not clear why Mr. Moses shot Ms. Augustin, the sheriff said.
About five hours later, detectives had questioned witnesses and “cleared the scene,” Sheriff Mina said, but local journalists were still preparing news reports. Mr. Moses returned to the area and shot Mr. Lyons and Jesse Walden, a News 13 videographer, while they were in a vehicle together, the sheriff said.
Minutes later, Mr. Moses walked into a nearby house and fatally shot T’yonna, wounding her mother, Sheriff Mina said.
The condition of the mother, whose name has not been released, is unclear. Phyllis Turner, T’yonna’s great-aunt, told NBC News that the 9-year-old was “the apple of her parents’ eye; she was just a delight to them.
It was unclear whether the shooter knew that the reporter and videographer were journalists. Sheriff Mina said their vehicle had “no noticeable markings” and that the shooter had passed “another news vehicle.”
Journalists from WFTV in Orlando witnessed the shooting and then rendered assistance to Mr. Lyons and Mr. Walden until deputies arrived, Sheriff Mina said, praising them for their bravery.
Mr Walden, 29, who was in critical condition on Wednesday, remained in hospital on Thursday but spoke to detectives, Sheriff Mina said.
Sheriff Mina stressed that investigators did not know the suspect’s motive or the nature of his connections to the victims. He said Mr. Moses did not speak to the police.
Mr. Moses, who was carrying a Glock pistol when he was arrested, was charged with the murder of Mrs. Augustin. Sheriff Mina said he was “100 percent sure” that Mr. Moses would also be charged with the murders of Mr. Lyons and T’yonna.
Mr. Moses’ criminal history includes charges of grievous bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand larceny and gun violations, Sheriff Mina said.
The shooting shocked journalists in Florida and across the country, reminding them of the dangers they could face when covering gun violence in their communities. The morning news meeting on WKMG-TV was like a “big therapy session,” Mr. Sandoval said, as station members wept and mourned their fallen colleague.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Mr. Lyons distinguished himself as a driven young reporter determined to succeed in television news, colleagues said. He joined Spectrum News 13 in July 2022 and previously worked at WCJB TV20 in Gainesville, Florida, according to the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalistswhich Mr. Lyons had given an award in 2020 for his coverage of a local congressional race.
News of his death at work underlined a “new and alarming” increase in threats, harassment and violence against local reporters across the United States, said Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University.
“In the past, we thought of physical danger as something that comes with war or high-risk investigative reporters. This is different,” Mr. Shapiro said. “What we’re seeing across the country now is local newsrooms feeling and experiencing more danger.”
The upswing has led to newsrooms now “increasingly feeling that they need the kind of training and vigilance that one would once assume only journalists venture into hostile environments abroad”.
Chris Post, a security journalism lecturer who has trained thousands of local and national reporters, including some from The New York Times, said domestic news gathering had become in some ways as dangerous as reporting in international war zones over the past 10 years. And yet few local reporters receive basic security training.
He said local news executives should tell reporters covering crime or other local stories that if they feel unsafe, “they can either strike the job or do it from another location.”
“It’s okay for them to step back,” he said. “It’s OK for them to leave the scene.”
Such advice may be anathema to some local journalists, who pride themselves on reporting directly from crime scenes and, especially in Florida, standing in front of the TV cameras in hurricane-force winds.
“It’s part of our job; we know the risks,” said Louis Aguirre, an anchorman and reporter at WPLG-TV in Miami.
He called Mr. Lyons’ death a “underbelly,” but added: “I don’t think it will change the way we report news here in South Florida. I don’t think journalists will think twice about getting into getting into situations like this.”
Mr Sandoval, noting there was no evidence Mr Lyons had been shot because he was a journalist, said reporters he had spoken to did not feel “attacked”. He said a reporter noted it could have been a delivery man or a random bystander who was shot.
“I’m heartbroken but woke up with a renewed fire in the gut that we can’t let this stop us,” said Mr. Sandoval. “We still have a duty to hold people accountable, to be the watchdog over our community and to report on the dangerous situations that are happening in our community. We have a responsibility.”
Abigail Geiger contributed reporting from Orlando, Fla.