She was 25.
Officers responded to the scene in downtown Norfolk around 2 a.m. and found Jenkins and two men with life-threatening gunshot wounds. One of the men, 25-year-old Devon M. Harris, was pronounced dead on scene, and the second was transported to the hospital, police said in a news release.
Two more men found by police at the scene with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds were also taken to the hospital for treatment, according to police.
Jenkins was “a bright and talented woman with so much promise,” said Virginian-Pilot editor-in-chief Kris Worrell. “Her passion for journalism was undeniable and our community is better because of her reporting. She brought both energy and empathy to her work as an education reporter.”
“To have the life of such a talented young person cut short is devastating,” Worrell added. “Our thoughts are with Sierra’s family and all those who knew and loved her. We are absolutely heartbroken.”
After hearing about the shooting, a newspaper editor attempted to contact Jenkins, who was on a breaking news shift Saturday morning, but couldn’t reach her, Worrell told CNN.
“When he didn’t hear back, we called in another reporter,” Worrell said. “In reporting the story of the shooting, we discovered that Sierra was one of the victims.”
Jenkins had also been an editorial research intern with CNN for three months in summer 2020, and a news assistant with CNN Health from September to December 2020. She began her job at the Virginian-Pilot shortly after as a breaking news reporter. Jenkins had recently been reporting on school policies and issues across the region, the newspaper said on Facebook.
She had also previously worked as an editorial researcher at Atlanta Magazine.
Both Virginia’s governor and Norfolk’s commonwealth’s attorney expressed their condolences to the families of the victims on Saturday.
“Locally, we will do our utmost to seek justice and accountability with the laws we have, but the solutions to gun violence start with good personal choices and sensible reforms to our national and state laws to keep guns out of the hands of bad actors. We must come together,” Ramin Fatehi, Norfolk commonwealth’s attorney said on Twitter.
Authorities say they’re continuing to investigate the shooting and are asking the public to come forward with any information.
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