A Univision News crew was robbed at gunpoint in Chicago moments before going live on air. This is the third attack on Chicago media in a month.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that “the journalists were reporting on a string of armed robberies across the city, including an armed carjacking of a woman Sunday night in the same block where the crew was robbed.”
According to police, two vehicles pulled up and three men wearing ski masks brandishing firearms exited the vehicles and robbed the crew near the CTA Blue Line Station at Milwaukee Avenue and Division Street.
The reporter and photographer were robbed of a camera, two equipment bags and a personal backpack.
“In the situation that happened today, it just happened so quickly,” said Raza Siddiqui, the Region Four vice president for National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET). “Someone pulled up right next to them brandishing a weapon.”
Siddiqui said photographers never know what they’ll encounter when they go out in the street. Monday’s armed robbery was the third attack on local news crews this month.
“Obviously no property, no assignment, nothing is worth the safety or the lives of our members,” he said.
Officials report no one is in custody at this time.