Family members of a slain television news reporter and a 9-year-old girl are suing the Orange County sheriff, saying his agency could have prevented the killings.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, alleges the sheriff’s office violated the rights of the victims and residents of the mostly Black neighborhood where the shootings occurred.
According to the lawsuit, Orange County Sheriff John W. Mina provided inadequate protection for residents of the Pine Hills neighborhood west of downtown Orlando.
The plaintiffs' lawyer said the sheriff’s office didn’t treat the area with the same urgency or importance it would with a primarily white neighborhood.
The sheriff’s office said Tuesday it will ask the judge to throw out the lawsuit and said only the shooting suspect is to blame for the deaths.
“Keith Moses is the only person responsible for the heinous acts of violence that took the lives of three of our residents and gravely injured two others,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “The claims against the Orange County Sheriff’s Office are unfounded, and we will be asking the judge to dismiss this case.”
The lawsuit said deputies could have prevented the deaths of T’Yonna Major, 9, and Spectrum 13 reporter Dylan Lyons, 24, if the sheriff’s office had given Pine Hills the same attention given to communities like Windermere, a nearby mostly white neighborhood.
“What’s significant about this case is that it could’ve been prevented," said Orlando lawyer Mark NeJame, who is representing the families of T'Yonna and Lyons. A 9-year-old child could be alive today if, in fact, things had been handled differently. And they’re handled differently in other parts of the county.”
NeJame on Tuesday described what he called discriminatory policies in the sheriff’s office that led to the death of T'Yonna and Lyons.
Deputies said Moses, then 19, shot and killed aquaintance Nathacha Augustin, 38, on Feb. 22, 2023. Deputies said Moses later in the day returned to the crime scene and fatally shot Lyons and critically wounded Spectrum 13 photographer Jesse Walden, who were assigned to travel to Pine Hills and report on the earlier shooting.
The lawsuit said investigators knew Moses was the suspected gunman but didn’t warn Pine Hills residents about the shooting or that a search for Moses was ongoing.
NeJame said that while bringing T-Yonne home from school, her mother, Brandi Turner, stopped to ask a deputy stationed in Pine Hills whether the area was safe because of the large law enforcement presence after Augustin's slaying. According to the lawsuit, the deputy told her everything was under control, even though sheriff’s officials hadn’t cleared the crime scene.
About 30 minutes after the journalists were shot, Moses fatally shot the 9-year-old and critically wounded her mother., according to the sheriff’s office.
“Because it was Pine Hills, they indicated that it was in fact, they couldn’t be putting warnings out and giving the neighborhood the warnings that other neighborhoods would be given,” NeJame said. “I can tell you, in my white, wealthy Windermere neighborhood, that if this in fact had happened and there had been a shooting, and a murder, everyone would have known about it. When there’s burglaries, there are helicopters in the sky.”
Around 73% of Pine Hills residents are Black, and more than 90% of Windermere residents are white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Family members of Lyons and Major are accusing the sheriff’s office of violating the shooting victims’ 14th Amendment rights by not offering equal protection under the law.
“We proceed because it’s the right thing to do,” NeJame said of the lawsuit. “They want to fight it in court? Here we are.”
Lyons' family has separately filed a wrongful death lawsuit in state court against Spectrum 13's parent company, Charter Communications, accusing news managers of sending the reporter to a dangerous crime scene without safety equipment.
The TV station has said the claims are unfounded and that it would seek to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Moses was arrested the day after the shootings. He has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the three slayings. His trial is set to begin Sept. 29.
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