CNN’s senior national correspondent Kyung Lah and a senior producer were robbed in San Francisco while working on a story about “rampant street crime.”
“I got robbed again,” Lah tweeted. Friday afternoon
Lah said she and CNN’s Jason Kravarik were inside City Hall when the thieves broke into a car that was guarded by security guards and took items, including her passport. According to Lah, who posted a photo of a broken rear window, the thieves were gone in less than four seconds.
“But seriously, this is ridiculous,” he wrote.
Security guards hired to watch the rental car and the CNN team’s team car reportedly gave chase, but the thieves drove away in a black Infiniti with California license plates.
CNN guards took a photo of the car and its license plate as it sped away.
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Lah was concerned that he would not be able to fly back to his Los Angeles home base because his identification was in one of the stolen bags. According to the reporter, Southwest Airlines said it’s not uncommon for travelers to have their luggage stolen in San Francisco and was given a plane ticket after a security check.
Lah and his team spent three days in “beautiful” San Francisco, but warned that even with hired security guards, cars are not safe on city streets.
A couple of hours after the robbery, Lah received some good news.
“OMG!!! They got my bag back!” she tweeted Friday afternoon.
Kravarik’s stolen bag was still missing. He also works at CNN’s Los Angeles bureau.
Car thefts are an ongoing problem in the Bay Area, according to multiple news reports. NBC News reported that San Francisco averaged 74 daily raids.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported in December more than a half of San Franciscans surveyed had been victims of robbery or theft, and trespassing accounted for a large number of complaints. That paper offers a car theft tracker. A Twitter feed called @SFCarBreakins allows San Franciscans to share their experiences. One claimed user his car was broken into twice this week.