Wounded Florida photographer Jesse Walden details ambush that left reporter Dylan Lyons dead: ‘He kept shooting at me’

Florida photographer Jesse Walden thought he was caught in the middle of a drive-by shooting during Wednesday’s deadly ambush, which left three people dead including his colleague Dylan Lyons

He didn’t know he was the intended target.

“I turn around because I’m like, ‘Oh, there must be a drive-by shooting going on.’ I see he’s shooting at me,” Walden told KOB News 4 from his hospital bed. “I assumed he was shooting at a house or something behind me and I just happened to catch a bullet. But he kept shooting at me.”

Walden and Lyons reported to the scene of a previous homicide in Orlando when he went to unload equipment from the unmarked car.

As he stepped out of the vehicle, Walden, who had been sitting in the driver’s seat, said he started hearing gunshots being fired in his direction. 

Walden took cover behind the wheel of his car as alleged gunman Keith Moses, 19, approached the vehicle and continued his rampage, shooting into the car, where Lyons had been sitting in the passenger’s seat.

“I was trying to figure out if I could kinda play cat and mouse with him and avoid being shot,” Walden recalled.

According to the outlet, Walden suffered a gunshot wound to his groin and remained hospitalized on Thursday. 

Lyons, a 24-year-old rising journalist, was shot and killed. 

Walden joined Spectrum 13 in April 2022 while Lyons was hired two months later. The station immediately paired the two together. He described the late reporter as his “best friend.”

“Dylan was a reporter I worked with every day,” Walden said. “We were best friends. He was just a sweet guy. He was young and he loved trying hard. That’s what we like to do. We like to push the boundaries. We like to get our hands dirty. It’s just unprovoked, senseless, random violence that no one could’ve saw coming.”

“It’s so unfair that it happened to Dylan.”

Moses’ alleged killing spree began around 11 a.m. when he fatally shot his acquaintance Nathacha Augustin, 38 in Orlando’s Pine Hills neighborhood.

He returned to the scene of the crime hours later, where he attacked the pair of journalists and killed 9-year-old T’Yonna Major, an aspiring gymnast. Major’s mother was also injured. 

Orange County Sheriff John Mina characterized the shootings as “random acts of violence” during a press conference on Wednesday.  

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Police released body cam footage of Moses’ arrest on Thursday evening. He seemingly fought with officers and plead for his release as they retrieved a gun from his pants.

“I can’t breathe!” Moses, 19, repeatedly screams. “I can’t breathe!” 

Moses was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the initial shooting that killed Augustin while police said that “numerous more charges” would follow.