A news cameraman for a major network in Chile experienced a robbery in broad daylight, allegedly by a deliveryman on a bicycle, during a live broadcast on Monday — the second such incident after robbers stole the mobile phone a fireman was using to appear on live television out of his hand while he was speaking to a news anchor.
The two incidents are the latest in a series of increasingly brazen, and violent, crimes under Marxist President Gabriel Boric, who took office in March after a narrow victory in last year’s presidential election and has used his power to tout environmentalist policies and attempt to disarm the general population. Boric, who has described himself in the past as “to the left of” the Communist Party of Chile, came to power after years of far-left mob attacks on churches, police stations, government buildings, and other targets of societal value that began when pro-China ex-President Sebastián Piñera announced a public fare hike for Santiago’s metro system. Boric’s opponent in the 2021 election, conservative José Antonio Kast, endured multiple attacks against his campaign events and staffers at the hands of leftist assailants before Boric’s victory.
“The violent situation that we are experiencing in many parts of our country is absolutely unacceptable and the normalizing of this is something that the government will not allow,” Boric said in May, two months before muggings on live television became a semi-regular occurrence.
The incident involving a cameraman occurred live on the network Chilevisión as reporter José Alejandro Aristimuño attempted to report on the growing value of the U.S. dollar — and crash of the Chilean peso. The robbery appeared to occur seconds before the network’s anchors turned towards Aristimuño, who attempted to begin his report but found himself unable to continue without acknowledging that his cameraman was just robbed.
“Although there is a plan on the part of the Central Bank … well, let’s wait a bit because, practically live on air they robbed us of the phone, but we will continue the report,” the reporter noted, baffling the anchors.
“I’m sorry, Alejandro … they just robbed your phone while you were reporting?” an anchor asked.
“Yes, they just robbed our cameraman of his telephone, a delivery man, according to his backpack,” Aristimuño replied. “This happened a few seconds ago.”
As the Argentine news outlet Infobae observed, the incident appeared similar to a robbery caught on video by the mobile phone stolen during a Facebook Live broadcast on July 15. An anchor for the outlet Araucanía 360 was interviewing firefighter and toxic substances expert Miguel Grandon on the campus of the Universidad de la Frontera (UFRO) via Zoom when the camera abruptly went dark and sounds indicating a conflict between the show’s guest and unknown individuals could be heard.
The confused anchor, Miguel Ángel Carrillo, can be heard asking, “it could have been a prank, right?” In a later interview, Carrillo noted that he had never experienced anything similar in his 30-year career and that the event left him speechless.
Grandon later offered an interview to Chilevisión from the safety of his home in which he explained that five individuals attacked him during the live broadcast – in which he lost his wallet, his computer, and his mobile phone.
“One of them took the phone I was using for the interview, the person on the left hit me on the head with a gun, the third one threw me on the floor, kicked me, and finally they robbed me of all the things I had at the moment,” Grandon explained. He stated that he suffered minor injury and “a little shock” but was “very lucky.”
“I was very lucky because n the end even though they beat me, they could have shot me,” he said in the interview, “I was lucky because 15 meters away there was a business run by someone who really wanted to help me, and I was very lucky because they could not, in the end, take my vehicle.”
Journalists and those engaging in reporting have increasingly become the target of violent criminals in Chile under Boric. The community experienced a particularly shocking loss during the Marxist May Day holiday – during which leftists around the world typically engaging in arson, rioting, and other violent crimes to celebrate their ideology of mass murder and political repression – when leftists shot and killed journalist Francisca Sandoval, who was reporting on the leftist violence in the Meiggs neighborhood of Santiago. Rioters shot Sandoval in the face.
“What is happening is unacceptable and there can be no half-measures here,” Boric said at the time, after visiting Sandoval in the hospital but before her death. “We are normalizing violence in our country in too many ways. We, of course, cannot allow as a state that delinquent gangs of organized crime take the streets of our country.”
Locals in the most affected communities have condemned Boric for attempting to blame unknown organized crime groups for the surge in violence, arguing instead that most are individual violent criminals sometimes associated with leftist riots.
“We are totally unprotected. If a robber enters your home and wants to steal all the belongings that you have collected through years of work, are you going to stand there with arms crossed or will you wait to be robbed?” a businessowner in Meiggs told Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN), interrupting a news report investigating a businessowner accused of brandishing a gun at rioters.
Boric has responded to the crime wave by attempting to impose a total ban on the ownership of guns and seeking international legislation to ban guns in other countries.
“We have to promote international legislation. Hopefully an awareness will be generated, beyond our borders, that the possession of firearms is bad for societies,” Boric said during a meeting with far-left Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in June. “That is why we do it from Chile to Canada, hopefully with all the countries that are close, hopefully it will be of some use.”
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