Rachel Swan

June 28, 2021

Two armed robbers held up a television news crew that was interviewing Oakland's director of violence prevention outside City Hall on Monday afternoon, just hours after the police chief warned of worsening crime amid cuts to the police budget.

Oakland police reported that the two suspects approached the newscasters at 3:09 p.m. and tried to steal a camera. After a scuffle, a security officer pulled out a gun and ordered the suspects to leave. They fled without the camera. No injuries were reported.

A statement from the Police Department described the incident but did not identify Guillermo Cespedes, head of the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, as a victim.

Cespedes told The Chronicle he was at the scene of an attempted robbery on Monday, and a police watch commander confirmed  he was being interviewed when the crime occurred.

“Our colleagues were conducting an interview at Oakland City Hall when they were approached by two armed individuals,” Liza Catalan, a spokesperson for NBC Bay Area, said. “Thankfully our colleagues are safe and unharmed.”

Less than three hours before the attempted robbery, Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong held a news conference in which he criticized the City Council for passing a budget that reduced police spending by $18 million — diverting much of those funds to the city’s department of violence prevention in an effort to support alternatives to policing.

Armstong said a surge in violent crime makes it more crucial to increase police funding and warned that police response to 911 calls could be delayed as a result of the cuts.

Oakland created its Department of Violence Prevention in 2017, with an ambitious goal: decrease homicides by 80 % over three years. The city tapped Cespedes to run the department in 2020, months before gun violence began rising at a staggering rate — a sudden unraveling after five years of progress.

As of Monday the city had counted 65 homicides for the year, nearly double the amount for this time last year.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan