ORLANDO, Fla. — From his hospital bed, the television news photographer who was wounded in Wednesday's shootings near Orlando discussed the moments when a gunman opened fire on him and his colleague.
When bullets started flying, Jesse Walden told KOB-TV in Albuquerque that he thought there was a drive-by shooting going on.
"We parked and my reporter pulls out his laptop and starts writing. He's in the passenger seat. I get out, back to my trunk to start pulling out my cameras for our live shot and as I'm about to open my trunk, I hear gunshots, and I feel that I'm getting hit," Walden said. "I feel some pain in my groin, and I turned around because I'm like, 'Oh, there must be a drive-by shooting going on.'"
Walden said he was shocked when he noticed the gunfire was targeting him and his co-worker.
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"I see that he's shooting at me. I was assuming he was shooting at a house or something behind me, and I just happened to catch a bullet," Walden said. "He kept shooting at me, so I ducked behind the wheel of my car, and he walked forward and shot into my car. That ended up striking my reporter, Dylan Lyons, and killing him."
Walden said he and Lyons had a tight relationship.
"Dylan was a reporter I worked with every day. We were best friends. He was just a sweet guy. He loved and really did a good job," Walden said. "We'd like to push the boundaries. We like to get our hands dirty. It's just this unprovoked senseless random violence that no one could have saw coming."
A mother and her 9-year-old daughter who live nearby were also shot when the gunman, identified as Keith Melvin Moses, 19, entered their home. The child died, but the mother is still in critical condition.
The Orange County Sheriff's Office said Moses also killed Nathacha Augustin, 38, earlier in the day in the same neighborhood.