Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey Mourns Loss of News 13 Reporter, Families Impacted by Orange County Shooting

By Wayne Ivey, Brevard Sheriff // February 23, 2023

Message from Sheriff Wayne Ivey

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Our thoughts and prayers are with our very own Greg Pallone, as he and his teammates at News 13, as well as the other families impacted by yesterday’s tragedy, deal with the loss of their loved ones.

Over the course of the past 20 years, I have had the pleasure of working with various reporters from News 13 and our entire agency is deeply saddened by their loss and the loss of the other victims from the incident that occurred in Orange County, yesterday afternoon.

This was a senseless act, perpetrated by an extremely violent individual, who because of his criminal history, should have never been out on the street where he could harm anyone else.

Let’s be clear, this is not gun violence as some have suggested…it’s scumbag violence, perpetrated by people with evil in their hearts and a criminal justice system that continues to not prosecute violent criminals to the fullest extent and puts them back out on our streets to target our citizens.

Please keep all of those impacted by this incident in your thoughts and prayers as they face this most difficult time.

Greg, our entire community is hurting with you, as you are a huge part of us and our success in Brevard!

The Spectrum News 13 news reporter who was shot and killed while covering a homicide in Orlando has been identified as Dylan Lyons, 24, according to a fundraiser set up by his sister, Rachel Lyons.

Lyons was at the scene where a woman was found dead earlier in the day when the suspect of that shooting returned to the scene and shot four others, killing two, including Lyons, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson.

Spectrum News 13 photojournalist Jesse Walden was critically injured.

“So we have detained the person believed to be responsible for the murder this morning as well as the shootings this afternoon,” Orange County Sheriff John Mina said Wednesday evening. “He is 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses. He is being formally charged in the murder from this morning, and we expect additional charges for the shootings of the four people this afternoon.”

“I am trying to raise money for my litter brother’s funeral,” Dylan’s sister Rachel Lyons said in the GoFundMe campaign.

“He was a reporter for Spectrum news and was ambushed and murdered while covering a story in Orlando, Florida.”

According to the Spectrum News 13 staff page, Lyons joined the organization as a multimedia journalist in July 2022.

“Born and raised in Philadelphia, Dylan’s journey to journalism was fueled by his desire to tell stories that impact local communities,” the News 13 page reads. “As a reporter, he’s honored to have the unique privilege of being a voice for the voiceless and making sure all communities and stories are treated fairly and equally.”

In response to the shooting, Spectrum News released the following statement Wednesday night:

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and the other lives senselessly taken today. Our thoughts are with our employee’s family, friends and co-workers during this very difficult time. We remain hopeful that our other colleague who was injured makes a full recovery. This is a terrible tragedy for the Orlando community.”

Mina said, at 19, Moses has a lengthy criminal history, including gun charges, aggravated battery and assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft charges.

“So, the suspect is not saying much right now,” Mina said. “It is unclear if he knew they were news media or not. We’re still trying to work all that out.”

The motivations of the shooting are still being determined, he said.

“It’s unclear why exactly they were targeted, and certainly we’re going to look into that,” Mina said.

“(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 added later.