April O'Neil

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**April O'Neil**, also known as **April** or **Ms. O'Neil**, is the main protagonist of the Paramount Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film franchise.

She is the close friend of the Ninja Turtles. Daughter of the long dead TCRI scientist, Dr. O'Neil, she is a fearless news reporter from Channel 6 News who is willing to get a new story to tell, and has a cameraman who works for her named Vern Fenwick. She also helps out the Turtles in their missions. April O'Neil debuts in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

## Films

### First Film

As a child, her father used the Ninja Turtles and Splinter as test subjects for his mutagen experiments, with April treating them as her pets, feeding them pizza when they were little. After her father destroyed his lab, she placed the Turtles and Splinter near a sewer grate.

As an adult, she worked in journalism at Channel 6, but felt that her talents were under-utilized reporting on relative puff pieces such as a new sports movement. While trying to follow up on an attempted story of stolen chemicals from a docking port, she first witnessed the Turtles active as vigilantes, later finding them when they thwarted a Foot Clan attempt to take hostages in a subway station. After hearing their names, she realized their ties to her father's work, but revealed the truth to Eric Sacks before the Turtles and Splinter could warn her of his real agenda.

After Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo were captured, she helped Raphael dig Splinter out from the rubble before helping Raphael reach the Sacks estate, giving the other Turtles a dose of adrenaline to help them escape their cages. She even managed to land the final blow on Shredder in the final battle, kicking him off the antenna of Sacks Tower after the tip was knocked over during their fight. Despite the Turtles being a ground-breaking story, April kept their secret, noting that she considered them her family.

### Second Film

Two years later, April has apparently returned to Channel 6, although she also acts as the Turtles' 'human contact', such as discreetly observing Baxter Stockman to confirm his ties to the Foot when the Turtles would be unable to get close enough to him. In the course of the film, she meets corrections officer Casey Jones when he is attempting to track down the Shredder and new mutants Rocksteady and Bebop after all three escaped during a prison transit that Jones was supervising.

During her investigation, April discovers and loses a canister of the purple mutagen used to transform Rocksteady and Bebop, prompting Raphael to convince April and Casey to help him and Michelangelo break into police headquarters to recover it from the evidence room after Donatello's research revealed that the purple mutagen could make the Turtles human. In the process, April and Casey are arrested when they act to protect the turtles from the police, but during the subsequent interrogation April refuses to give up any information about the Turtles, stating firmly that they are not monsters. Stockman attempts to frame April for industrial espionage and sabotage by providing the police with doctored footage of April stealing the purple mutagen, but Verne is able to find the original footage showing April escaping the just-mutated Rocksteady and Bebop and clear their names, allowing April to call the Turtles for help.

At the conclusion of the film, April is shown delivering a news broadcast on the turtles' role in saving the city, although she again avoids identifying them in order to let them continue to operate in secret.

## Powers, Abilities, and Weaponry

**Journalism:** April possesses impress journalism skills, as she has stated that she had four years of journalism school, and that she is now a news reporter.

## Trivia

* Her job as a news reporter in Channel 6 News is a reference to her 1987 incarnation.
* According to her, she had four years of journalism school.
* In the first film, she was fired from channel 6, but then somehow got her job back.
* She might be an only child.
* In the 2014 film, she has a black Nokia phone, in the 2016 film, she has an iPhone with a yellow case which might be an iPhone 6, since the events of the 2016 film take place in 2016 and the iPhone 6 was available then.
* She appears to have yellow ear buds.
* Her favorite color might be yellow.
* Mikey has a crush on her.