iStockphoto / Steve King
A Univision news crew was in Chicago to report on a string of recent armed robberies when they were robbed at gunpoint, a story that’s emblematic of a recent spike in crime.
The news crew was at the 1200 block of North Milwaukee Avenue, on the North side of Chicago not too far from Goose Island, and gathering video footage for their story on recent armed robberies when two vehicles approached them and masked men exited the SUV and sedan holding guns and wearing ski masks.
According to reports, the crew were ‘robbed of their belongings’ but it doesn’t specify which. Presumably wallets and any other valuables they had in their possession at the time but. A report from USA Today also states that ‘a news camera’ and ‘two bags with equipment’ were also taken.
Should the armed robbers be brazen enough to try and sell the news camera or camera equipment, it seems like a very good place for Chicago detectives to start in tracking the robbers. Equipment like that would stand out on the secondary market.
Luis Godinez, a spokesman for Univision Chicago, told USA Today “Gratefully, the crew is safe.”
It is unclear if this is part of a ‘crime wave’ that occurred in Chicago on Sunday with armed robberies in Wicker Park, Bucktown, The Loop, and Lincoln Park, all which took place beginning on Sunday afternoon and into the early morning hours of Monday.
Between those 4 and this Univision robbery that’s 5 armed robberies in just a few hours.
Mentions of this armed robbery of a Chicago news crew reporting on armed robberies has caught like wildfire on Twitter (or X). The story began to trend from several outlets with people in disbelief that it could happen the way it did.