Another crime in open daylight of a media worker in Oakland, this one involving Oakland Tribune chief photographer Laura Oda. She had just finished shooting a mural being painted on San Pablo Avenue between 35th and 36th streets yesterday afternoon when a man with a gun grabbed two cameras off her shoulder and another man swiped a camera bag and laptop from her car.
Add: The Trib’s Kristin J. Bender says it’s the sixth Bay Area crime incident against working news people in the last six weeks, including the theft of an ABC 7 reporter’s laptop in May from a news van while the reporter and a photographer were covering a fire.
At 9:45 p.m. last Thursday, a KTVU Channel 2 news crew doing a live shoot in the 5700 block of Redwood Road in the Oakland hills was robbed. The reporter was sitting in the front of the news van when a suspect opened the door, reached in and stole her laptop and a briefcase off her lap. Police said a suspect simulated a gun in his waistband and stole the cameraman's equipment, which was near the van. The names of the victims were not available.
In mid-May, NBC television news reporter Jodi Hernandez and her cameraman, Rich Goudeau, were on San Pablo Avenue, at 21st Street, doing a story on state budget cuts when a man ran up to the photographer from behind and swiped a TV camera and tripod before jumping into a car.
