Albuquerque TV News Van Stolen As News Crew Sets Out To Report On Crime Story
An Albuquerque news crew became the latest victims of a crime wave in the northwestern city when their van was stolen right as the reporters, as fate would have it, exited the vehicle to investigate the crime wave.
Michelle Donaldson, the KOB News director, relayed to the Albuquerque Journal on Friday that her news crew was hijacked when a robber drove off in their SUV, after first obtaining the vehicle near the corners of First and Central, where the news crew had previously parked the van.
“I have a rule that you can never be the lead of your own newscast,” Donaldson said of the ironic incident involving the stolen news truck to the Albuquerque Journal, before joking, “this [clearly] violates that rule.”
Things soon turned around for the KOB-TV employees, however, as they were able to locate their van about 30 minutes after the news vehicle was first stolen, according to the New York Post.
“The vehicle was recovered without [the need of] police assistance by following the GPS tracking device that was [inside the news van],” the newspaper further details.
Donaldson went on to confirm to the Albuquerque Journal that the team of news reporters “went to [the] location” shown on the SUV’s location device and subsequently and effectively “recovered [the TV station’s] stolen vehicle.”
By the time the KOB-TV team arrived at where the assumed robber dropped off the stolen news van, they were apparently nowhere to be found.
Donaldson says the thief somehow managed to get inside of the “locked” SUV and flee the scene with the van without the need for the utility vehicle’s keys, which may have been in another KOB News team member’s possession at the time of the robbery.
TV news van stolen while crew works on story https://t.co/1T4e4gOAHk pic.twitter.com/s5OOND2aeS
— 23ABC News (@23ABCNews) June 24, 2017
“I’m [just] relieved that our people are OK and I’m relieved that we’ve recovered our property,” she admits, “but I’m [also] very angry that somebody can walk up to a parked, locked, vehicle in front of you in this city and drive it away,” Donaldson went on to say.
“It’s a helpless feeling to know you can’t do anything about [being a crime victim],” the TV news director continued.
Although the reporters never appeared to be in any danger, their temporarily-stolen news van was claimed by Donaldson as being moderately damaged by the robber, before it was ultimately recovered by the network.
[Featured Image by ewg3D/iStock]
