Oakland Tribune
Bay Area News Group photographer Laura Oda was relieved of two cameras, her laptop and a camera bag on Monday, the sixth robbery of a journalist in Oakland, Calif., in as many weeks.
Kristin J. Bender writes: “News crews have been robbed more times in the past six weeks than in recent history, sounding an alarm of caution among the Bay Area press.”
Two photographers were robbed at the same site on June 18, Bender writes, and lists three other robberies of journalists in Oakland and one in San Francisco. One of the robberies was pretty brazen:
At 9:45 p.m. last Thursday, a KTVU Channel 2 news crew doing a live shoot in the 5700 block of Redwood Road in the Oakland hills was robbed. The reporter was sitting in the front of the news van when a suspect opened the door, reached in and stole her laptop and a briefcase off her lap. Police said a suspect simulated a gun in his waistband and stole the cameraman’s equipment, which was near the van.
“Oakland is a dangerous place,” San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers Association President Paul Sakuma told Bender.
