Pictured – Violence Prevention Chief Guillermo Cespedes, charged with finding “alternatives” to policing ,to combat violence in minority communities.
The New York Post:
An NBC Bay Area crew were the victims of an attempted gunpoint robbery during this interview with California’s Department of Violence Prevention Chief Guillermo Cespedes on the steps of Oakland City Hall.
A Bay Area television news crew was held up at gunpoint while interviewing Oakland’s director of violence prevention — just hours after the city’s police chief warned of surging crime.
Two armed robbers tried to snatch a camera from the NBC Bay Area journalists as they filmed outside City Hall on Monday at around 3 p.m., the Oakland Police Department said in a statement.
A scuffle ensued and a private security guard — who was contracted by the news agency — pulled out a gun and told the suspects to scram.
The would-be robbers fled without the camera and no one was hurt, police said.
The brazen stick-up attempt took place during an interview with Guillermo Cespedes, head of the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, according to cops.
Less than three hours earlier, Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong had held a press conference slamming a move by City Hall to cut the department’s budget by $18 million.
Much of those funds would be diverted to the Department of Violence Prevention, in an effort by Oakland officials to back alternatives to policing, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
