'Inside Edition' crew gets robbed while reporting on San Francisco Bay Area crime
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}An "Inside Edition" crew who baited "smash and grab" thieves to reported on robberies in California's San Francisco Bay Area were the victims of a true robbery, and had thousands of dollars worth of equipment stolen. (YouTube/Inside Edition)
An "Inside Edition" crew who baited "smash and grab" thieves in California's San Francisco Bay Area were the victims of a true robbery — resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
In an effort to report on rampant robberies in the area, "Inside Edition" employees filmed themselves planting GPS trackers inside items that were placed in a car parked in an area well-known for theft.
The trackers were placed inside of a $250 speaker and a purse just before reporter Lisa Guerrero explains "for [their] last trick," they also placed video cameras throughout the car in the event the products get stolen.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sure enough, two people were soon spotted robbing the vehicle. A man was seen in the segment smashing open the car's back window, pulling out the handbag and throwing it to a woman sitting nearby before removing the speaker.
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According to a man whose surveillance footage caught the incident, he said "it all lasted maybe 20 seconds."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The "Inside Edition" crew then tracked down the speaker and confronted the duo as they walked into a train station.
"You've got my speaker right there, you just broke into our car," Guerrero says, telling the man they've "got it on camera."
While the man tries to shy away from the cameraperson, and, at one point even pushing the camera down, the reporter informs him "five million people are going to see [him] steal that." Refusing to give it back, the man says he's going to call his mother — an offer Guerrero encourages.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Inside Edition" said the man eventually left the speaker, and they later moved on to track the stolen purse, which was found in a garbage can.
While the crew was interviewing the man captured on camera in the initial theft, their actual crew car was broken into via the "smash and grab" method, leaving "thousands of dollars worth of equipment" stolen.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, more than 31,000 people reported "smash and grab" robberies in the city in 2017 alone.