Second incident in a month
If you think you’ve seen it all when it comes to crime in Chicago…now we have TV news crews getting robbed while covering…robberies.
According to local crime blog CWBChicago, a local news crew was ready to do a live shot around 5 a.m. on the Near North Side near the intersection of Division and Milwaukee when a black SUV and a grey sedan pulled up. Three masked men got out of their vehicles and pulled guns on the crew, taking their personal belongings including stealing a station camera.
Police did not identify the station that was robbed, though we’re now learning it was a crew belonging to Univision’s WGBO-TV. This is the second news crew station robbery this month; on August 8 according to the same blog, an ABC 7 news crew was robbed on the West Side in the 2800 block of West Monroe in the East Garfield Park neighborhood. In both incidents, no one was hurt.
This comes as a crime wave is engulfing all parts of the city with carjackings, break-ins, and armed robberies surging from year-ago levels. This week alone, more than 50 such acts were reported from the Northwest Side all the way to the Far South Side. Even suburbs weren’t spared, as incidents were reported in Cicero (mob action) and Tinley Park this weekend.
Until now, Chicago news crews have been spared from robberies taking place in other parts of the country – notably in the San Francisco Bay Area, with robberies of news crews taking place – even live on the air. Last year, a passerby pointed a gun at a camera at a Fox 32 cameraman during a live shot in the River North neighborhood. In 2020, an unidentified ABC 7 crew member was assaulted by a passerby at a looted Family Dollar store at 75th Place and Stony Island during disturbances related to the killing of George Floyd.
In addition to San Francisco and Oakland, other places where news crews have mugged in recent years include Memphis and the countries of Ecuador and Qatar, where a news crew was robbed right outside the stadium where the FIFA Men’s World Cup took place last year.
Meanwhile on Friday night, two people were shot inside Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side during a White Sox game in the bleachers section of the ballpark, forcing the cancellation of a planned post-game concert. It is not known how the women were shot as the ballpark has metal detectors as speculation centered on gunshots being fired a mile south in the nearby Fuller Park neighborhood at the same time the game was going on; or perhaps a gun somehow went off in the park. The incident followed talk the team may leave their longtime home when their lease is up at the end of this decade.
All of these incidents has residents wondering what the city is doing to keep their residents safe. So far, they seem to be failing at that mission – especially when the media who are reporting on these robberies to keep us informed – are now getting robbed themselves.