Florida host reacts heartbreakingly on air to fatal murder of fellow TV journalist

A video circulating on social media shows a local news reporter’s heartbreaking emotional reaction to the fatal murder of a fellow TV reporter in Orange County, Florida.

The man suspected of killing the woman on February 22 returned to the scene a few hours later and shot four more people, killing a young girl and a television reporter, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

In a video posted by Observers to the NBC affiliate WESH website and social media, host Luana Muñoz paused to wipe her tears during the live coverage, saying it was a “really tough” story to cover.

She added that she was not going to turn the camera to show people who knew the victims gathered at the scene.

“But I will say this: it’s nice to see all the media, at this moment we are united in solidarity,” she said. “This is absolutely every reporter’s worst nightmare. We go home at night, afraid that something like this will happen. And that’s what happened here.”

Muñoz later told TODAY.com that she went on air moments after she and the news director of another TV station comforted a woman close to one of the victims as she wept outside the hospital.

“So, in that moment, I was sort of immersed in her emotions, listening to her tears,” Muñoz said. “It was so fresh, so damp, and then they asked me to stand in front of the camera and… you know, you are human, I am human. And it was difficult.”

According to Sheriff John Mina, a Spectrum News 13 film crew was in Pine Hills, a suburb near Orlando, on Wednesday afternoon to cover the murder of a woman in her 20s who was found shot to death in the area earlier in the day.

Mina said the suspect in the earlier shooting, Keith Melvin Moses, 19, returned to the scene and shot the reporter and photographer. One of the two later died. None of them were publicly identified by the police or their employer.

Mina said the suspect then entered a nearby house and shot the mother and her young daughter. The 9-year-old girl died from her injuries.

Both the mother and the surviving television journalist were in critical condition as of Wednesday evening, officials said.

Mina said it was unclear if the suspect knew the film crew was part of the media.

“As far as we know, (Moses) had nothing to do with journalists, nor with the mother and 9-year-old child,” Mina said. “We don’t know why he entered this house.”

Speaking to TODAY.com, Munoz said she hopes people who see her emotional reaction in the video understand that reporters are “people too.”

“People have this perception that journalists are stoic, that we only show up at the scene of a crime to be nosy or to cause some kind of damage or harm when that couldn’t be further from the truth,” she said. “Journalists do what they do because they are there to provide information to the public.”

“I have to go home with rough thoughts about that young woman screaming at the top of her lungs. After losing someone who was so close to her. We take it all home with us every night,” she said excitedly. “And I hope people look at this and say, ‘You know, wait a minute. They are people too. And they don’t care.”

Local American journalists are rarely killed in the field. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which tracks reporter deaths, the most recent incident occurred in 2015, when news reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward were killed while on assignment in Coin, Virginia.

However, since the shooting in Virginia in the United States, more American journalists have been killed in their offices or homes, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and previous NBC News reports.

In 2018, a man opened fire with a shotgun in the newsroom of Annapolis, Maryland, killing five people in what police called a “targeted attack.” All five of those killed were employees of the Stolichnaya Gazeta newspaper.

Another reporter, Jeff German of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was found stabbed to death outside his home on September 3, 2022. He covered government corruption. Police charged Clark County State Administrator Robert Telles with Herman’s murder. According to the Review-Journal, Telles will appear in court on April 17.

In total, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 16 journalists have died in incidents related to their work in the United States since the group began tracking them in 1992.

Speaking to TODAY.com on Wednesday night, Muñoz made sure she knew the two dead victims, their families, colleagues and friends, who are the “real victims” of the February 22 tragedy.

“My thoughts and my prayers sincerely to all our colleagues, but mainly our colleagues at Spectrum 13 News,” she said, before urging society to “do better” when it comes to ending gun violence.

“We just see too much violence going on. And we, we need – we need Maybe – make better. We can get better as a society, and we… have to figure out how we can be kinder to each other and how we can take better care of each other.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com

Content Source

California Press News – Latest News:
Los Angeles Local News || Bay Area Local News || California News || Lifestyle News || National news || Travel News || Health News

Related Articles

Back to top button