Last week, the city council in Oakland, California decided to formally defund its police department of more than $18 million, a journey that started with a pledge last July during all those fun BLM riots.

Since the woke council announced that it would strip its public officers of resources, crime has predictably spiked in the city, just like it has around the nation.

Oakland has had nearly twice the number of murders as it did at this time last year and all violent crimes – including homicide, rapes, robberies, and assaults – are up 13%.

When you play stupid games, however, you win even stupider prizes – a fact that became all too apparent when two armed robbers held up the city's chief of violence prevention while he was doing a TV interview AT CITY HALL!

Two armed robbers held up a television news crew that was interviewing Oakland's director of violence prevention outside City Hall on Monday afternoon, just hours after the police chief warned of worsening crime amid cuts to the police budget.

Oakland police reported that the two suspects approached the newscasters at 3:09 p.m. and tried to steal a camera. After a scuffle, a security officer pulled out a gun and ordered the suspects to leave. They fled without the camera. No injuries were reported.

You can watch the news segment on this insanity here.

Guillermo Cespedes, who leads Oakland's Department of Violence Prevention, had literally criticized the city council at a news conference hours before he was accosted at gunpoint.

Think about this: This wasn't some back alley attack of opportunity.

The perps felt comfortable walking up to City Hall in broad daylight with guns while they tried to rob a news crew of their camera!

As H.P. Lovecraft once said, "From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent."