The males demanded cash from the crew sooner than stealing the digicam used to movie the tale on robberies, in addition to two luggage of apparatus and the photographer’s backpack, Raza Siddiqui, president of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians Local 41, which represents TV photographers in Chicago, mentioned to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“The offenders then took the victims’ belongings before returning to the vehicles and fleeing,” Chicago police spokesman Jose Lemus-Cortez informed The Post.
While police didn’t ascertain the employment of the sufferers, Spanish-language TV station Univision Chicago informed native media that two of its staff, a 28-year-old guy and a 42-year-old guy who weren’t named, have been held at gunpoint.
“They were approached with guns and robbed,” Luis Godinez, vice chairman of news at Univision Chicago, informed the Chicago Tribune. Godinez didn’t straight away reply to a request for remark Tuesday morning,
No accidents have been reported at the scene, police mentioned. No suspects have been in custody as of Tuesday morning, and detectives are nonetheless investigating the incident.
The theft of the TV crew comes as Chicago police are investigating a sequence of at least 8 armed robberies and carjackings that opened up on Sunday evening and Monday. Police have now not related any of the incidents, however have mentioned that each and every case has concerned a gaggle of 2 to 4 folks ambushing the sufferers.
The price of homicides in the city is down 8 p.c from this similar time closing yr, in keeping with data tracked through Chicago police, and the price of capturing incidents could also be down 11 p.c in comparison to August 2022. But there were greater than 6,500 theft court cases in 2023 as of Sunday, a spike of 23 p.c in comparison to this similar time closing yr, police knowledge presentations. There have additionally been greater than 19,500 studies of motor car thefts — an build up of 99 p.c in comparison to August 2022.
A spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) didn’t straight away reply to a request for remark Tuesday morning. The mayor’s place of work launched a observation Monday pronouncing that the police division’s bureau of patrol and detectives are running in combination to unravel theft and motor car robbery circumstances, reported WLS-TV, Chicago’s ABC associate.
Television news crews throughout the nation have confronted expanding threats of violence while on the activity in fresh years. In August 2015, reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward of CBS associate WDBJ in Roanoke have been shot and killed while accomplishing a are living TV interview. In 2021, crews in Raleigh, San Francisco and Miami Beach got here beneath assault as they have been seeking to do their jobs.
The Monday incident is the 2d time in 3 weeks {that a} Chicago TV crew has been robbed while protecting a tale.
On Aug. 8, a photographer with WLS-TV was once assaulted and robbed while protecting a news convention on Chicago’s West Side. The station reported previous this month that the photographer was once “fine and suffered only minor scrapes,” and that police have been investigating.
Godinez informed the Tribune that the theft was once discussed on Univision Chicago’s 5 p.m. broadcast, however the station made up our minds to not make the incident central to its protection.
“We don’t want to make the story about us, because there were other robberies that occurred within that same period,” he mentioned.
Siddiqui informed the Sun-Times that the station and others affiliated with the union are running towards taking further steps to support safety for TV crews in the box.
“We want to make sure that we provide a longer-lasting solution that we work not only with management but our members, and make sure that we read some protocols that everyone is happy with and feels can be a workable solution,” Siddiqui mentioned.