A TV news team were attacked and their security guard shot by a group of robbers as they tried to report on smash-and-grab crimes seen recently throughout California.
The news team from KRON4 had been reporting on Wednesday on a robbery which had involved 12 armed thugs wearing masks and hoods targeting a Prime 356 clothing store in Oakland.
However, police have said that criminals then targeted the news crews camera equipment during their report at around 12.20pm.
Oakland Police confirmed that the crew's security guard had been shot in the abdomen and was taken to Highland Hospital for surgery.
He is currently still at the hospital an in a stable condition.
Speaking later about the incident, Oakland police said: 'As you know it’s been an extremely violent week. We are asking if you were in the area, have a business or live nearby to please check your surveillance footage as you may have captured the crime before, during, or after it occurred.'
The news team from KRON4 had been reporting on Wednesday on a robbery which had involved 12 armed thugs wearing masks and hoods targeting a Prime 356 clothing store in Oakland. Pictured: Police are seen arriving at the scene following the incident
A reward of $17,500 was initially offered by police and the security guard's company - Star Protection Agency - as a reward for information that leads to the arrest of those involved - but this has now been raised to $25,000.
It is not uncommon for news teams to hire private security to ensure the safety of everyone involved.
KRON4's VP Jim Rose said that the safety of their personnel is the station's top priority, which is why they had hired security.
He added: 'Our thoughts and prayers are with the security guard and his family and we wish him a complete recovery.'
Police officers also later found an additional victim - who had been hit by shrapnel - who was also transported to hospital and is also now in a stable condition.
The second victim was released from hospital yesterday.
The incident is just the latest in a series of recent robberies to have taken place throughout the Golden State, which started last Friday.
Oakland Police confirmed that the crew's security guard had been shot in the abdomen and was taken to Highland Hospital for surgery. He is currently still at the hospital an in a stable condition
Earlier today, it was reported that a group of four young men are wanted for robbing $20,000 worth of merchandise from an Apple Store, all caught on security cameras in broad daylight.
The incident took place at Santa Rosa Plaza, about an hour from San Francisco, on Wednesday morning.
Four young men, believed by police to be between the ages of 14 and 18, entered and grabbed the merch before fleeing in what authorities called a 'brazen daytime burglary' in broad daylight.
A detective from the Santa Rosa Police Department said they weren’t notified about the theft until 10 minutes after it occurred due to an Apple in-house protocol.
In the last week, thieves have made off with tens of thousands of dollars in luxury goods, amid soft misdemeanor theft laws in the Democrat-run state.
Around 20 robbers smashed their way into a Nordstrom at The Grove retail complex in LA on Monday night, making off with $5,000 worth of merchandise; and a CVS pharmacy in the city was struck just an hour later, where looters stole $8,000 from a cash register.
Law enforcement say that mercenary thieves are being recruited for up to $1,000 to steal the expensive goods which are then shipped across state lines and sold on the internet. The sophisticated method makes it harder for cops to track the criminals.
The thieves sped off and managed to escape despite multiple police cruisers, as well as fire trucks and ambulances, responding to the raid (pictured: cop cars outside the Nordstrom in Canoga Park on Wednesday night)
A police car outside the Nordstrom on Wednesday night after thieves made off with around eight luxury handbags
There have been a series of thefts throughout the Golden State over the last week
San Francisco has seen a dramatic increase in crime rates across the board, particularly in larceny thefts
California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed on Monday to get tough with organized gangs of thieves who have ransacked and looted luxury retail stores in the San Francisco Bay Area
Police in Palo Alto announced Wednesday that two women had been arrested in connection with a Sunday night attempt to steal items from the RealReal clothing boutique downtown.
Police said 30 to 40 people arrived in some 20 cars and tried to break down the glass front door but it held. A security guard reported the effort and the crowd fled as police arrived.
The women were stopped in a car where police said they found at least $15,000 in clothes from a second RealReal location that was burglarized in Larkspur earlier that night.
Meanwhile, five people pleaded not guilty Wednesday to felony charges involving thefts in San Francisco.
Nine people have been charged in connection with Friday night attacks on stores including Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Bloomingdale's in the downtown area and in Union Square, a posh shopping district popular with tourists that was teeming with holiday shoppers.
Ben Dugan, president of the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, said: 'We're not talking about someone who needs money or needs food. These are people who go out and do this is for high profit, and for the thrill.'
Other major US cities have also seen a spike in store break-ins, including Chicago and its suburbs, where more than a dozen suspects attacked a Louis Vuitton store last week and stole more than $120,000 worth of high-end clothing and other merchandise.
Aside from the organized crime rings, the growing problem has been attributed to police officers' apparent reluctance to pursue retail criminals in the current political climate, prosecutors' failure to prioritize larceny and theft, and the decriminalization of low-level offenses in some jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, two progressive criminal justice experts suggested the news media and law enforcement officials should stop using the term 'looting' to describe the brazen store robberies, arguing that the term is racist.
Lorenzo Boyd, a professor of criminal justice & community policing at the University of New Haven, and Martin Reynolds, co-executive director of the Robert C. Maynard Institute of Journalism Education, urged news outlets to refer to the crimes as 'organized smash-and-grabs.'
Boyd and Martin's remarks immediately opened the floodgates of mockery on Twitter, with critics on the right mercilessly pillorying the 'woke' experts.
Conservative activist and former convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza tweeted: 'Experts refuse to call a spade a spade, unless, of course, it's a spade wielded by a white male.'
Ex-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker compared it to the language used in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting in Wisconsin: 'It's looting. Just like there were riots in Kenosha, not just protests.'
Best Buy CEO Corie Berry said this week that the situation has become so dire that her company is stepping up security measures to protect its staff and shoppers.
'This is traumatizing for our associates and is unacceptable,' Barry said on a
