A CBS News crew from Chicago was allegedly ambushed during what they described as a racist attack.
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According to CBS News, a CBS-affiliated Chicago reporter and photographer were near the Adler Planetarium when three men in a white tow truck approached.
Witnesses said they watched as the truck parked directly in front of the news crew’s vehicle. That was when the attack started.
“They just were trying to do anything they could to scare them unnecessarily. It came out of nowhere,” one of the witnesses stated.
The witnesses and the crew revealed that a white or Hispanic man with a dog got out of the tow truck and moved aggressively towards the news crew. The man allegedly shouted racial slurs at one of the journalists.
“It started racial with the cameraman because he’s an African American male,” the witness shared.
Chicago Police said the man had ordered the dog to attack the news crew, but it didn’t.
“I think he was trying to, again, intimidate [the cameraman],” the second witness said. “Make him scared by having the dog approach first.”
However, when one of the news crew members defended themselves from the dog, two other men got out of the tow truck.
“They were saying, ‘Leave the dog alone,’ a witness recalled. “And I just feel like maybe the scene got more chaotic than they were expecting, and I feel like the only thing they thought to do was to just cause as much damage as they could and leave.”
One of the men smashed the cameraman’s camera, while the other smashed the news crew’s truck with a traffic cone. The group then took off in the tow truck.
Three People Were Arrested Following the Incident
Meanwhile, it was reported that three people were arrested approximately 20 minutes after the incident. The arrests also followed a different attack.
Chicago Police told CBS News that it received reports that the three people were in a tow truck, pointing a gun at people on the sidewalk near 42nd and Western in Brighton Park.
Although the trio managed to flee the scene, officers caught up with the tow truck, and it crashed into a squad car.
A gun was reportedly recovered from the tow truck. However, the weapon was not involved in the news crew incident.
“We didn’t see any guns in that moment, but to know that it escalated to that or could of been that is just terrifying,” the news crew situation’s witness pointed out.
“We are shocked and horrified by this crime,” a CBS spokesperson said in a statement. “And we are grateful that our journalists are safe.”
Charges for the three people are currently pending, and an investigation is underway.