A suspect is in custody after a journalist in Orlando and a nine-year-old girl were fatally shot. Two additional individuals were wounded in Pine Hills on Wednesday afternoon.
According to Orange County Sheriff John Mina, police received reports of the two shootings around 4:05 p.m. in the afternoon. The shootings occurred on Hialeah Street, near the same location that a woman was shot and killed earlier in the day.
Due to the previous shooting, law enforcement were close by. When deputies arrived, they discovered two Spectrum News 13 employees shot. Both of them were on scene covering the earlier homicide. One of them died, and the other is in a critical state. Mina stated, “It is unclear if [the suspect] knew if they were news media or not,” Mina said. “We’re still trying to work all of that out.” He added, “So it’s unclear why exactly they were targeted.”
Deputies claim that after shooting the news team, the suspect went to a house close by on Harrington Street and shot a nine-year-old girl who later died. Her mother was also shot, and she is in critical condition.
Sheriff Mina declared that the suspect involved in the shootings, including the one earlier in the morning, is Keith Moses, a 19-year-old man with a lengthy criminal record containing aggravated battery, assault, burglery and grand theft.
Moses has been charged in the murder of the woman who was found dead in Pine Hills Wednesday morning and is also the suspect in the other four shootings, two of which caused the deaths of a journalist and a 9-year-old. Mina said that they are expecting further charges. There is still no understanding of why Moses fired at the victims.
Mina expressed his sorrow to the community and media partners. At the same time, Charter Communications, the parent company of Spectrum News, declared its deep grief in the loss of its colleague and the other lives taken, alongside their hope for the injured to make a full recovery.