Dylan Lyons and Keith Moses (Orange County Sheriff’s Office).
The employer of a journalist who was killed is being sued by his family, claiming that the company endangered Dylan Lyons during a shooting incident and failed to provide him with adequate training for active shooter situations.
Spectrum News 13, the parent company of Charter Communications, sent Lyons and photojournalist Jesse Walden to cover a story about an at-large shooter who had murdered Nathacha Augustin, 38, as stated in the recently filed lawsuit. The two journalists were on the scene when the suspect, Keith Moses, 21, returned and attacked them, resulting in Lyons’ death and Walden being critically injured, according to Orange County deputies in Florida.
Prior to encountering the journalists, Moses had entered a residence where he shot a mother and her 9-year-old daughter, T’Yonna Major, the lawsuit revealed. Tragically, T’Yonna did not survive the attack.
Nathacha Augustin and T’Yonna Major (Orange County Sheriff’s Office).
The murder case against Moses is ongoing.
Lyons’ father, Gary Lyons’, handles his estate and is suing on his behalf. The complaint alleges that Charter Communications sent reporters into harm’s way “without appropriate security measures, choices, or proper consideration of their well-being.”
“Defendant SPECTRUM employs news reporters and videographers, such as Plaintiff LYONS, to go to active crime scenes involving violence and provide coverage,” they wrote. “However, although Defendant SPECTRUM requires travel to high-crime areas, Defendant SPECTRUM does not provide said reporters and videographers with any personal protection measures or security personnel.”
The complaint asserts negligence, virtual certainty, concealed danger, and gross negligence.
“At all times material hereto, Defendant SPECTRUM had a non-delegable duty to provide sufficient and reoccurring journalism safety training to Plaintiff LYONS and other reasonably foreseeable persons associated with their employment as news reporters reporting on active news events in the public,” they wrote.
NeJame Law, the firm representing the Lyons family, also promised to sue the Orange County Sheriff’s Office next week in connection to the same shooting spree.
Charter Communications and the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a Law&Crime request for comment.
