Heather Holmes

Heather Holmes is a co-anchor of KTVU Channel 2 Weekend News in Oakland, California.

(Twitter | @hholmesktvu)

News is always happening -- even while reporters are busy covering it.

KTVU Channel 2 weekend co-anchor Heather Holmes found that out the hard way on Monday, when her purse was stolen while she was doing a live report on another robbery in Oakland. The irony is, the incident happened while she and a camera operator were parked in front of the California city's police headquarters.

The San Franciso Gate reports Holmes was "only steps away" from the news station van, leaving it unlocked. Someone took her purse and used her bank card at a nearby gas station within 20 minutes, she discovered.

"R u kidding me? Doing a live report at @oaklandpoliceca headquarters & my purse is stolen from the live truck," she wrote on Twitter. "We were parked outside #OPD!!"

According to CBS, she was reporting on a woman who was violently mugged in broad daylight and helped by Good Samaritans. The 10 p.m. newscast including footage of the bloodied victim being put it into an ambulance.

"Last night I became a news story," Holmes wrote on Facebook late Tuesday. "But the story shouldn't be about me. It should be about the young woman in North Oakland who at 6pm yesterday, was beaten for her purse as she walked to meet a friend."

Holmes, a Texas native who joined KTVU in 2006 after previously working in New York, tweeted afterwards that she canceled all of her credit cards, changed the locks and learned a lesson: "Be aware of your surroundings at all times, including at police headquarters."

Mediabistro points out Bay Area journalists have seen similar incidents in the past. Television gear was stolen from a KTVU truck in Oakland just three months ago. In another incident, a thief took a camera being used for a live shot in a noon broadcast.

CBS reports KTVU and other Oakland TV stations have made a habit of sending armed security guards with reporters and camera crews out on assignment.

Holmes filed a police report with the Oakland Police Department, according to KTVU, a Fox affiliate for the San Franciso Bay Area. No arrests have been made.