INDIANAPOLIS, IN (July 18, 2008) – Television photojournalist Kevin Hankins of WISH-TV, and a freelance video photographer shooting for the Pike Township Fire Department, where shot at while covering an overnight vacant house fire in Indianapolis.
Police said the fire happened after just after 2 a.m. on Friday morning and that while firefighters and journalists were at the scene, someone fired shots at the people around the fire, apparently with a .22 caliber weapon.
Hankins was shot in the lower back, and the fire department's photographer was shot in the arm. A firefighter's breathing tank was struck by another bullet.
WISH-TV's Steve Sweitzer says Hankins was treated at Methodist Hospital and released. The condition of the other photographer is not known at this time. Police say that no one saw the shooter and no arrests have been made.
In this morning's WISH news report, Hankins says, "I was just gathering shots around the scene and then all of sudden heard a pop and felt something on my left back. And then the medic behind me said, you don't got to be so jumpy. I said I just got hit by something. And I lifted up my shirt and he said you're bleeding and were shot by something."
Sweitzer is an NPPA past president and is director of WISH-TV's news operations.
