(JAMAICA OBSERVER) – A TV reporter and a nine-year-old girl were fatally shot on Wednesday in Orlando, Florida, close to the scene of a murder that took place hours earlier.
The girl’s mother and another reporter were also shot and injured by the same gunman, who is also the suspect in the first homicide, police said.
According to reports, the journalists were covering the killing of a woman in the area Wednesday morning when the armed suspect returned. It is unclear if the victims were targeted.
After attacking the journalists, the alleged gunman – Keith Moses, 19 – went into a nearby home and shot the girl and her mother, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said.
The mother has been hospitalised in critical condition, Mina added.
The suspect, Mina said, “has a lengthy criminal history, to include gun charges, aggravated battery and assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft charges”.
The sheriff described him as an “acquaintance” of the woman shot in the morning, “but as far as we know, he had no connection to the reporters and no connection to the mother and the nine-year-old”.
When asked if there is a possibility that the gunman purposefully targeted the reporters, Mina said “it’s something we’ll be taking a look at”.
He added that it was also possible the suspect mistook the journalists for police as they were reportedly on the scene in a vehicle that did not look like a TV station’s official vehicle.
The suspect was armed when he was arrested and was not cooperating with police, said investigators.
