SketchFactor: TV News Crew Doing Story On App Robbed In Sketchy Neighborhood


A SketchFactor-related robbery?

A Washington, D.C. TV crew filming a story about a new app that helps people avoid sketchy neighborhoods were victims of crime when someone reportedly broke in to their news van.

The SketchFactor app was not specifically mentioned by the name in the story (see embed below) but presumably that’s the app that they were covering.

The news van robbery occurred Friday night in northwest D.C. in an area that residents who were being interviewed for the story described as a good neighborhood.

As The Inquisitr previously described, the controversial app employes a rating system similar to Yelp and relies on user interaction to determine the location of the “sketchy” areas. This allows the user to find an alternate path to avoid those precincts.

Commenting on the van burglary, W9USA reporter Mola Lenghi explained that he and his crew (a photojournalist and an intern) usually cover crime rather than become victims of it. Said Lenghi: “We got back to the news van, noticed that our locked was popped out, got in there, and noticed that all of our stuff was gone.”

Stolen items included several backpacks full of electronic devices and cameras worth thousands of dollars. The intern who lost, among other things, an iPhone and an iPad used the “find my iPhone” app on Lenghi’s phone to track down of her phone and some their other belongings which had been abandoned by the thief in several dumpsters in other apparently sketchy D.C. neighborhoods.

Summarized Lenghi about the irony, “Were doing a story on one app, and a different app ended up saving us.”

Separately, the creators of SketchFactor have denied media claims that the app has a racial component. The developers insist that the navigation tool is for everyone and noted that it even has a reporting mechanism for racial profiling.

Watch the video report about the D.C. television news van robbed while the crew was working on a story about (presumably) SketchFactor:

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