NBC crew robbed in Oakland

An NBC Sports crew working on assignment in Oakland, Calif., was robbed at gunpoint Saturday morning, according to a report from The Mercury News, and the robbers got away with a camera from the crew’s vehicle.

No one was injured during the robbery, the newspaper noted, citing an Oakland Police Department spokesperson.

This robbery is reportedly the third involving news organizations in Oakland within 2 1/2 weeks’ time. 

On Dec. 3, a San Francisco Chronicle photographer was held up in an armed robbery, and before that a security guard for local news station KRON-TV was shot and killed during an attempted robbery, according to The Mercury News. 

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf (D) said two weeks ago that her office was drafting a proposal to place before the City Council to increase active police presence and require a larger police force. Schaaf also wants to establish a new police academy class. 

“We in Oakland believe in a comprehensive and effective approach to ending gun violence,” Schaaf said late last month. 

The spike in crimes is taking place at a time when the police department’s force has fallen to 677 officers, which is reportedly the city’s lowest police staffing level in more than a decade. 

The FBI released data in late September that showed violent crime had increased by 5 percent from 2019 to 2020, though overall crime had gone down 6 percent in the same time frame. 

According to a Gallup poll from last month, many Americans’ perception of crime increase is also on the rise. More than half of people surveyed in the Gallup poll, 51 percent, stated that they believed that crime in their local neighborhoods had gone up. Last year, 38 percent of respondents agreed.