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3 arrested in Facebook Live killings
By Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura
New York Times

Three men have been arrested in the Dominican Republic after two radio journalists were shot and killed during a Facebook Live broadcast Tuesday, according to local news reports.

Gunmen opened fire while one journalist, Luís Manuel Medina of Milenio Caliente, was reading the news at the radio station in a shopping center in San Pedro de Macorís, east of Santo Domingo, the capital.

In a video uploaded to YouTube, shots can be heard in the background as Medina continues reading. A woman is heard yelling off camera, “Shots! Shots! Shots!’’

He looks up from the screen, then the broadcast is abruptly cut.

His producer, Leo Martínez, also a director of Milenio Caliente, was shot and killed in an adjacent office.

A woman identified in media reports as a secretary was seriously injured in the attack and hospitalized, the authorities said. Police said the motive for the killings was unclear.

The killings of journalists are rare on the island, but some say they have received death threats and harassment in recent years, particularly over their coverage of the country’s immigration debate and for denouncing what they see as government hostility and persecution of Dominicans of Haitian descent.

New York Times