Hannah Alam didn't expect to be covering COVID-19.

She reports on national security and extremism for NPR.

But the funny thing about this moment, she says, is how the coronavirus ends up touching

everything.

Like everyone, I mean, doesn't matter what your beat was before the pandemic, everyone's

a coronavirus reporter now.

A few weeks back, Hannah started hearing about this story.

It was right at the intersection between a regular beat and the pandemic.

It revolved around a shootout in Missouri.

Much like the rest of the Metro and the country, this dead end street in Belton, where a few

businesses are located is pretty quiet.

But it was far from quiet Tuesday.

That afternoon, witnesses told us law enforcement officers opened fire on 36-year-old Timothy

Wilson and killed him.

He heard that there was this weird operation down in Missouri, COVID connection, the guy

inspected.

An encrypted messages investigators say Wilson would use racial slurs when referring to

people of different races or religions and that he held anti-government beliefs.

The man who got killed, Timothy Wilson, who was 36 years old.

He had ties to neo-Nazi groups online.

The FBI had been keeping tabs on him since September.

But it wasn't until later that we started getting details about what was going on with

...