Czech news crew in S.F. covering APEC robbed at gunpoint while filming an iconic spot

[艹艹艹]

Czech news crew in S.F. covering APEC robbed at gunpoint while filming an iconic spot​

Updated: Nov. 13, 2023 12:34 p.m.

Milan Nosek, a journalist from the Czech Republic, carries a camera on a Columbus Avenue in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Nosek and the team of television journalists he was with were robbed of their camera and other equipment nearby while covering the APEC summit.

Czech TV journalist Bohumil Vostal was capturing what he thought would be a majestic shot — San Francisco’s iconic City Lights bookstore, steeped in the gathering dusk — when three masked assailants approached with guns pointed.

“They were heading at my camera man, aiming a gun at his stomach, and one at my head,” Vostal said in an interview Monday, growing breathless as he recounted the harrowing incident at 5 p.m. the night before.

Like many reporters, Vostal had seen news coverage of unruly shoplifters, open-air drug markets and commercial vacancies, but he hoped to portray the city in a more positive light.

But after three armed perpetrators confronted Vostal and his cameraman on Columbus Avenue, stealing more than $18,000 worth of equipment and precious footage from a day of wandering the city, the Czech newsman said he felt shattered.

“I’m one of those many people who used to read Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road,’ and I was so much looking forward to visit your city,” he said, recalling how magical the day of filming had been.

He and his crew from a public television station in the Czech Republic had captured shots of the Painted Ladies in Alamo Square, interviewed gallery owner Jonathan Carver Moore and met with community figures in the Transgender District that straddles South of Market and the Tenderloin.

All of that content was lost, Vostal said despondently, while he and the other crew members scrambled to find new material. The cameraman had rushed to Best Buy to purchase cables and new lights, trying to rig up the video recorder on his personal camera.

Police officers arrived within a minute after Vostal called 911, just as the robbers sped off in a dark sedan. He said the police expressed sympathy, as did other San Francisco workers and residents who heard of the TV crew’s plight. Some even conveyed a sense of personal responsibility for the robbery, ashamed, it seemed, that their city had behaved badly during its moment in the international spotlight.

Investigators from the Police Department’s Robbery Unit are probing Sunday’s heist, and a spokesperson from Mayor London Breed’s office said the city is working to support the Czech journalists.

Breed met with them at City Hall on Monday morning to express concern and assure that her staff will help replace their equipment. Her spokesperson, Jeff Cretan, said that law enforcement is aggressively cracking down on robberies and other crimes.

He pointed to a recently announced prosecution of a robbery crew accused of holding up a Happy Donuts in Noe Valley, along with other stickups in the Mission District.

 

[FuturePAF]

No amount of fresh paint is going to cover up systemic problems in San Francisco. It’s not that this happens often, but when it does happen, it’s not dealt in a way to deter it from happening again. It’s also why many don’t use BART, people’s tolerance for crime and odd behavior has run out.

But to be honest, once/if the city’s housing prices drop to a realistic level, and enough middle class people can afford to live in the city, they can vote out the virtue signaling politicians and return to some level of a functionally responsible government. Currently it’s rich NIMBYs living out their nostalgia fantasies in the city by the bay.

For the long term stability of the city, open camping homeless should no longer be allowed. That’s the first thing voters have to overrule the judge that allowed that to happen. Second, homeless shelters have to be a statewide system, in which homeless individuals aren’t allowed to always get their preferred location. The state needs more housing for the working homeless but also needs people to be move to areas where the state can afford to care for them and it doesn’t undermine public safety. Substance abuse rehab and mental health care should get more funding instead of housing homeless in more expensive parts of the state.

Having said all that, San Francisco is still an amazing city, you just need to keep your head on a swivel for trouble.

 

[FuturePAF]

They are going act on this because of how bad it makes S.F. (and the US) look internationally, especially in Europe. Asia and Europe are probably the highest spending tourists origin regions from outside the U.S. , so S.F. can’t afford to let this go. But if they do catch them quickly, it will expose how possible it is to catch these kinds of criminals. SF is in a catch 22.

 

[khansaheeb]

I was in San Francisco today and what a horrible place it is in some parts:-

 

[CIA Mole]

turmoil in american inner cities is the result of marxist communist socialist primal bandit thinking

“i take ur shit cuz i aint gots none”

republican party was the ones that freed the slaves


democrat commie marxist trash destroyed america thru legalized theft

 

[buntalanlucu]

i dunno , but you cant just enter high crime rate cities without precaution

 

[RescueRanger]

I was in San Francisco today and what a horrible place it is in some parts:-

View attachment 1012628

That looks particularly sad.

 

[khansaheeb]

That looks particularly sad.

Yeh, US does have dark sides, not everything is glossy and sane.

 

[meis]

Sanfran, the Zombie land, the best and natural place to shoot zombie movies.

 

[8888888888888]

Well they do value Chaos and disorder more than Safety and order like the wild west when anyone can get murdered and robbed easily.