A teen gunman in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday fatally shot at least three people, including a woman, a 9-year-old girl and a Spectrum News reporter who was covering a homicide investigation, authorities told Spectrum News 13. The girl’s mother and another Spectrum reporter were also shot and hospitalized in critical condition.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said investigators were responding to a residence where an unidentified woman had been found shot to death Wednesday morning. Sometime that afternoon, the suspect also shot another woman, her 9-year-old daughter and the two reporters.
None of the victims was yet identified.
Police said they arrested 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, who was booked on murder charges for the three deaths. Additional charges were expected for the two wounded victims. “At 19, he has a lengthy criminal history, to include gun charges, aggravated battery and assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft charges,” Mina said.
The Spectrum employees were reporting on the homicide investigation from earlier that day in Pine Hills. It was not immediately clear what the girl and her mother were doing in the area.
Mina said the suspect was known to the woman killed in the morning, but as for the other victims, “it is unclear if he knew they were news media or not. We’re still trying to work all that out.”
He said it still wasn’t clear why the other victims were targeted.
“(Moses) was an acquaintance of the woman this morning, but as far as we know, (he) had no connection to the reporters and no connection to the mother and the 9-year-old,” he told Spectrum.