Watch: Drive-By Shooting Erupts as ABC Reporter Conducts Interview About Rising Crime

An ABC reporter was caught in the middle of gunfire while conducting an interview in a terrifying moment that was caught on camera. WATN reporter Jay Jones was interviewing Memphis, Tennessee local Yolanda Cooper Sutton about the rise in crime earlier this month when a drive-by shooting erupted in their vicinity, sending both Jones and Sutton diving for cover.

“We report about the city’s crime problem almost every day, but today that problem hit home for one of our crews while doing a story about crime in Whitehaven,” WATN anchor Richard Ransom said as he introduced video footage of the moment. “We were interviewing a woman about the Memphis PD’s plan to enforce the city’s teen curfew when out of nowhere [there was] a drive-by shooting across the street.”

Video footage of the moment showed what began as a normal interview in Memphis’ Whitehaven neighborhood, with Cooper Sutton spelling her name for Jones. The interview, however, was abruptly interrupted when gunfire sounded in the vicinity, the interview immediately stopping as Sutton jumped at the sound and the film crew ran for cover. As gunfire continued to sound, Sutton could be heard telling Jones and the others on the scene, “Get down, get down, get down, just stay down and get down. That’s OK. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Stay down and get down.” Heavy, shaking breathing could also be heard. After the gunfire stopped, Sutton offered Jones encouragement, telling him, “You’re ok, Jay,” before later adding, “Alright, we should be alright.”

Later recounting the incident, per Mediaite, Sutton told Fox News’ John Roberts, “All of a sudden, just out of nowhere, you hear gunfire and after that, you just see us hit the ground.” Sutton said she knew it was gunfire “because it rings around the city like church bells on a regular basis. I just know – now it’s just having to practice to get down like a fire drill here in Memphis because the crime has escalated so much. And I just knew to get down because a moving target is a hit target. And so, the best thing for anyone to do is just to get down. And that was just instincts. Just my instincts kicked in immediately.”

The shooting occurred near a children’s playground at around 11 a.m. local time in a parking lot between the White Haven Community Center and Rains Finley Park, according to Ransom, who said that the shooter was targeting an apartment complex across the street. Nobody was injured in the shooting. Ransom said that as of that broadcast, it appeared nobody had been arrested in connection to the crime.