(The Center Square) – A European band was robbed at gunpoint in Vallejo, California, just “ten minutes” after hitting the road for their U.S. tour.
When the British band “Sports Team” stopped for coffee at 9:00 AM at a Starbucks in Vallejo, a Bay Area city, masked men started “ransacking the van” and pulled out a gun on the band’s tour manager.
The band, which has two top-ten albums in the United Kingdom, said the thieves took bags containing their laptops, passports, and clothes, but not their instruments, which were in a separate, locked compartment.
In a social media post with a video of the incident, Sports Team said “police response was ‘submit an online report.’”
Despite the setback, the band continued onward to Sacramento for its next performance.
“They can take our Nintendo Switches but they can never take our ability to play rock song about motorways,” said the band. “In all seriousness pretty shocking how resigned everyone seems to be about it.”
Gunpoint robberies have increased 76% and thefts from vehicles have increased 834% in Vallejo since 2019, according to the California Department of Justice.
According to GrowSF, a tech-backed advocacy group, half of crimes in the area go unreported.
In 2019, Vallejo 109 gunpoint robberies and 142 thefts from vehicles were reported. In 2023, 182 gunpoint robberies and 1,201 thefts from vehicles were reported, respective increases of 76% and 834%.
Vallejo’s police department suffers from severe understaffing, with only 73% sworn officers, or about half of the force it’s allocated resources for. Open Vallejo, a local public-interest, non-profit newsroom says that while responses for the 3% of top-priority calls have remained at about seven minutes, response times for the 39% of priority level two calls are at 91 minutes, while those for the 58% of priority three calls are 153 minutes.
Open Vallejo also found VPD no longer has the capacity to respond to about half of all calls. VPD adopted a policy of no longer responding to unverified alarm responses earlier this year.
The Los Angeles Police Department, which is also severely understaffed, also sought to stop responding to 28 kinds of 911 calls. While that proposal did not move forward, the city is still diverting a large number of calls to the LAPD Unarmed Model of Crisis Response, a small pilot program operating in three of LA’s 21 police divisions.