Czech News Crew Robbed at Gunpoint While Covering APEC in San Francisco

‘Masked assailants’ were ’heading at my cameraman, aiming a gun at his stomach and one at my head,' a TV journalist said.

People walk outside the Moscone Center during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in San Francisco on Nov. 11, 2023. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

Two Czech television news crew were robbed at gunpoint while covering the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco on Nov. 12, according to multiple reports.

TV journalist Bohumil Vostal said he was capturing a shot of San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore when three “masked assailants” approached him and his cameraman, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“They were heading at my cameraman, aiming a gun at his stomach and one at my head,” Mr. Vostal told the news outlet.

The incident occurred at around 5 p.m. local time on Columbus Avenue. The armed assailants reportedly stole more than $18,000 worth of production equipment and footage from the news crew.

The San Francisco Police Department told KTVU Fox 2 that it was looking into an armed robbery by three men that occurred near Broadway and Columbus Avenue but could not confirm if the victims were the Czech news crew.

The United States is hosting the annual 21-member APEC summit of world leaders this week for the first time since 2011. Leaders will discuss how to spur trade and economic growth across the Pacific region.

Battling a ‘Doom Loop’

San Francisco has been waging for years a multi-pronged war on drugs and related crime, homelessness, and unaffordable housing. It has grabbed headlines as a city in an economic “doom loop” as some businesses have shuttered, public transport ridership has dropped, and offices lie empty.

Officials have tried to clean up the city’s streets, with limited success. The crisis has drawn sharp criticism from residents and conservative politicians who have blamed the city’s problems on its liberal policies.

Clean-up efforts ahead of the summit—where President Joe Biden and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping will meet—have not convinced those who are skeptical that these improvements will last.

Paul Boden, director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, a coalition of homeless groups, said that forcing homeless people to move will never solve the real problem.

“They do this for the Superbowl, they do this for conferences ... but nothing ends homelessness like a home,” Mr. Boden told Reuters.

The city has a homeless rate of 887 people per 100,000 residents, according to a 2023 report from the San Francisco controller’s office on 16 American cities.

That was the third-highest rate in the country behind neighboring Oakland and Los Angeles.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.