61A - News Story #2

Cathedral Robbery

You're sitting at your desk in the San Francisco bureau of a newspaper. A fax comes in from police Sergeant Lawrence Price of the SF police department. It looks like a couple of tourist were robbed at gunpoint.

It happened this morning, so the story will appear tomorrow. Attribute the story to the police or Price. Be sure to get Price's title right (AP style).

The robbery took place in the parking lot of Saint Mary's Cathedral. The victims were WeiMing Chen, 28, and his wife, Li Lu, 30.

As the victims tell it, they had been with their tour group that morning. They left the group at about 10 a.m. and walked to the cathedral's lower parking lot, where they were taking pictures.

A man approached them. The victims later said he was wearing a black jacket and cap. After he approached them, the thief waved a pistol around. Then he demanded their money. Chen described the assailant as being about 18 years old.

Chen handed over his money, about $100. The thief wanted more. Chen gave him his Visa card. He also gave him their passports, camera and airline tickets.

The suspect took off running. The police are looking for him.

Nobody knows if the couple was able to make their 1 p.m. flight back to Taipei. The whole tour group, about 30 employees of a Taiwan airline, were scheduled to leave then.