A camera crew, shooting footage for a story about Houston, becomes the story themselves when an armed robber snatches their equipment and takes off.
This happened along a busy freeway in broad daylight on Wednesday in front of the iconic “We Love Houston” sign.
The video production crew didn’t think there was any danger shooting at that location in the middle of the day. But it was not an area with heavy foot traffic, so when they saw a man walking towards them they found it a little odd.
Next thing they knew, the man pulled out a gun and was demanding that they hand over their expensive cameras.
Zach Jankovic was working on the video for a real estate company with Cut To Create Video Productions. He told Click 2 Houston: “We didn’t want any trouble. We said take the cameras, we’ll keep our lives.”
But when the thief started running down the highway with the two cameras and two tripods, the victims called 911, jumped in their car and started chasing him.
According to the local news report, the thief was struggling with the equipment and started smashing the cameras on the road, apparently trying to remove them from the tripods.
What the robber didn’t know, was that a GoPro camera was attached to one of the tripods and rolling the whole time. The GoPro – which the suspect left behind — captured a ‘selfie’ of him as he tried to flee.
Turns out the suspect was using a pellet gun during the robbery, police say. His getaway car was a maroon Nissan Altima. Police are asking anyone who may recognize him to call the Houston Police Dept.
