San Francisco-area news crews targeted by robbers
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Examiner photographer Mike Koozmin was on a routine assignment at the city’s Hall of Justice in the middle of the day when he was robbed of his camera equipment.
“They pulled me into an alley and were tugging on my camera strap,” Koozmin said of his two assailants, who ended up with $10,000 worth of equipment last month. “I was resisting at first, but then I saw how desperate they were and gave it to them.”
It was the latest of at least a dozen robberies of television news crews and still photographers that has plagued the San Francisco Bay Area in recent years.
Camera crews from major Bay Area television stations and photographers from two newspapers have been robbed of their pricey gear.
Two have been pistol whipped. An Oakland Tribune photographer lost five cameras in two incidents.
Three robberies and two burglaries have been reported this year. And Koozmin’s was one of the most brazen. He was robbed across the street from the city’s criminal courthouse, where uniformed police were entering and exiting the building.
Koozmin was jostled but left unhurt. A television cameraman wasn’t so lucky on July 2 when two television news crews were robbed during a live broadcast from San Francisco’s picturesque waterfront.
As the news crew went live amid joggers and tourists, an assailant wearing a ski mask pistol whipped a KNTV cameraman and the broadcast quickly switched back to the studio. The assailant and two accomplices escaped in a late-model BMW with two stolen cameras and two tripods.
The cameraman sustained a gash behind his ear, but declined medical attention beyond what he received at the scene.