Photo via Twitter.

At an announcement for Mayor Muriel Bowser’s new task force to combat robberies, it looks like the group may already have found its first case.

WJLA is reporting that its news car was robbed while reporters covered the press conference.

According to ABC7 News reporter Stephen Tschida, thieves tore through the news vehicle early Wednesday afternoon and a culprit smashed a window out of the car and stole a cache of equipment.

Tschida said the crime happened a few feet away from where the mayor and chief were speaking.

The task force will “target offenders by quickly identifying and responding to patterns of a robbery spree…[and] focus on developing the strongest cases possible to prosecute repeat offenders, and remove them from our streets,” according to a statement. The group includes the Metropolitan Police Department, Metro Police, the Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier explained at a public meeting in October that the nature of criminality in the District has changed over time. “We used to say that violence was neighborhood-based, so it was pretty easy to identify. About six years ago, the gangs stop forming around neighborhoods and open-market drug dealing. Now, criminal street gangs are organized around armed robberies. They’re involved in a high number of robberies and they don’t just do it in one neighborhood.”

One robbery is too many. This task force will identify crime patterns, respond in real-time to what appears to be a robbery spree (1/2)

— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) January 6, 2016

The task force comes on the heels of a 5 percent increase in robberies in 2015. A statement from the mayor notes that D.C. still experienced 22 percent fewer robberies than in 2007, even though the city experienced a population boom during that time.