Transcripts For KNTV NBC 20240704

More answers eight months after this video surfaced. Plus, we investigate San Franciscos driverless taxis. Critics say theyre just not ready. The hazard lights were on. Now theyre off. What happened when we went along for a ride. Cheers the beer is flowing, and the brewers are breaking barriers. A craft brew revolution happening right now in oakland. Good evening. This is nbc bay area news tonight. Im raj mathai. A lot happening on this tuesday. Lets start with the developing news in oakland. A deadly shooting at the lake merritt b. A. R. T. Station. Our skyranger was overhead. Were learning that b. A. R. T. Police have a person of interest right now in custody. Heres what happened. Gunfire broke out just after 2 30 this afternoon in a bus loading zone on eighth and oak streets. One man was killed. Investigators say Surveillance Video helped them track down that person of interest within two hours. No word yet on what may have led up to the shooting. Police say they dont believe the victim or the shooter were riding the b. A. R. T. Train. Trains to that lake merritt station were halted for about 30 minutes. Service is now back to normal. Now, yesterday we reported that Violent Crime in oakland is at record highs. On this program, i spoke with cynthia adams, the head of the oakland chapter of the naacp. She recently wrote an open letter asking for Governor Newsom to step in to address the crime wave. Its also about economics that were having problems in oakland with jobs. As you know, if theres no jobs, crime do go up. And thats the reason why crime is really up. Its because theres no jobs in oakland. You had three major sports teams to leave oakland within the last, what, four years . And crime goes up every time our business do leave. Theres hardly no businesses in oakland. And she was talking about the possible departure there, including the as. You can watch the rest of our conversation with her at nbcbayarea. Com. Another headline that were following this evening, the collapse of the pac12 conference and what really comes next for cal and stanford. Both universities are now actively looking for a new home, a new conference for its sports teams. This morning, the uc board of regents had a closeddoor meeting. On the table, joining either the Atlantic Coast conference, the acc, or the big ten. This comes after five pac12 schools announced last week that theyre leaving the erence, which mea after season, cal and stanford, part of the far left of youeen there, cal, stanford, washington state, and oregon state are the only four teams remaining in the pac12. There has to be a plan forward. Theyve got to act quickly because if they dont, then they run the risk potentially of losing their status in terms of being a Major College Football Team and being in a power league and having a chance at winning a national championship. Before it used to be a pretty competitive conference with usc, ucla. Now with only four teams left, its concerning because we dont know how the future competitiveness of the conference is going to be. Ucla on the way out. Usc on its way out. Washington, oregon, all the big schools on their way out. Reportedly the acc president s are also discussing this possibility of picking up cal and stanford, but no decision has been made. Its worth noting whos in the acc. Some of the schools, duke, north carolina, and virginia. Also tonight, a big retailer bucking the trend. Over the past few months, weve reported on dozens of businesses leaving San Francisco. Dwindling foot traffic, rampant crime, and theft. But today ikea announced its opening its longplanned San Francisco store in two weeks. The store is at 945 market and will start welcoming customers august 23rd. At first, it will occupy three floors, but eventually it will open three more floors, including coworking space with a food hall. The folks at ikea, i think, agree with me that San Francisco is poised for a comeback, and theyre bullish on the future of being a Retail Outlet in San Francisco. I dont think theyll get much business. I dont think so because a lot of people dont like being in this area because of all the drugs and everything thats going on. So i dont know. As for the safety concerns, ikea says its going to have private security guards at all the doors and will also have Loss Prevention workers inside throughout the store. An update now to a story that we broke last year. Why was this san jose fire truck at a strip club . We finally are getting some longawaited answers about this viral video. A bikiniclad woman right there walking from the fire truck and into the pink poodle strip club. Thanks to a judges ruling, weve obtained the final report into what happened. When we first saw the video, answers were hard to come by. Eventually, after working our sources, we learned that the woman was a Club Employee and that the firefighters claim that they gave her a ride around the block after she demanded it. After months of fighting for more answers, the mercury news sued, and a judge ordered the release of the investigators report. That report, which still includes some redactions, formally names several of the firefighters involved that night and provides the first explanation into why that truck was at the pink poodle in the first place. Nbcs Damian Trujillo joins us this evening. The multimillion dollar question here, what was the fire truck doing outside the pink poodle . Reporter what the report says is that there was a photographer that the fire crew had contacted to do some video shoots and photography of them. So they allegedly had told the investigator they went to the pink poodle because this photographer also worked parttime, im told, as a bouncer at the pink poodle. They went to retrieve the pictures there, and then when they arrived there at the pink poodle for those pictures, they told the investigators that the woman in the bikini told them or demanded that they take her on a ridealong, and so they did. They took her on a short ridealong, and thats why a fire engine was in front of the pink poodle. The firefighters on that truck that night, were they suspended . Do they still work for the department . Theyre still there. Nothing happened to the four three firefighters who were there. The fire captain was demoted from captain to fire engineer. We reported that a couple of months ago. But thats what really upsets a lot of critics, including former san jose mayor sam liccardo, that the three remaining firefighters faced no disciplinary action. The current mayor, the current staff from san jose, any word . Reporter the city just issued a statement a couple of hours ago saying this was an isolated incident. They dont condone it. They do condemn it, but they also kind of insinuated that some of the people involved were hard to talk to, that they were not cooperative with the investigation. Theyre not forced to, especially the woman in the video. Im told that she declined to talk to investigators. We tried to reach out to her through back channels. She declined an interview with us as well. So the lack of cooperation also is what the city is pointing at. Hopefully it is, like the city said to you today, hopefully this is just an isolated incident, and certainly they do not condone it. Damian trujillo, thank you for joining us. Lets move on now. This is an issue that will impact all of us or will eventually impact all of us. For some of us, actually, were dealing with it right now. Driverless cars. San francisco is the states largest testing ground, and on this thursday, two of the biggest Autonomous Car Companies May get permission to expand. Cruise and waymo are asking state regulators to let them operate their robotaxis 24 7. Industry insiders say these cars bring safety benefits. The vehicles dont speed. They dont drive drunk or get distracted. But the chief says the cars have blocked fire trucks and plowed through caution tape at emergency scenes. Our reporter bigad shaban took a ride himself. While in the car, he witnessed it obeying the speed limits navigating busy streets. After 45 minutes, the car dropped him off at his destination. All went well. But when bigad took a second ride, this time driving with a driving instructor seated in the back seat with him, things didnt go as planned. Reporter about one minute in, our car was at a green light but wouldnt budge. Its a very safe situation for the car to turn, and its just staying here. Im not sure why. So thats interesting. It seems a little hesitant to you. Very hesitant. Reporter the car eventually inched forward but kept stopping. Were kind of now riding in between two lanes. The hazard lights were on. Now theyre off. Reporter then all of a sudden, it hit the gas. Oh okay. I dont know what its doing now. Reporter our car drove straight towards the median and just stopped, taking up almost two full lanes. This is not good. Yeah. People are honking at us. Okay. Bigad shaban is with us now. I like that. People are honking at us. A lot of people actually. Not only did the car stop, but it stopped diagonally. Do you just youre a sitting duck right there. Did you get out, or do you kind of want to stay in and see whats happening . Per the recommendation of that driving instructor, who has taught thousands of beginning drivers, she said the last thing we want to do right now is get out of the vehicle. That was be my first instinct. She actually recommended not to. It wasnt long before Cruise Customer Service actually hit us up through the intercom system of the car and said they detected a problem. So what was the solution to get our driverless car going again . Send a human driver. So youre sitting there for 10, 15, 20 minutes . About 20 minutes, yeah. It created quite the traffic jam behind us. What street are you on there in San Francisco . We were on 19th avenue in outer sunset. So were talking about a major thoroughfare there. And people were definitely giving us some pretty frustrated looks, and people would do a double take, raj. Theyre like, wait a minute, theres no driver. Oh, but theres passengers in the back. The response from cruise, and this is a twopart question because i know you sat down with cruise. Was that before this botched ride, or is this after the botched ride . Interestingly, we sat down with cruise just hours before we took on that same day . Yeah, on that same day, believe it or not. One thing we did talk about during that interview is, listen, if cars are unsure what to do, they are programmed, their default is to make a safe stop, to which we said, coming to a full stop can often create safety issues too. What if were on the bay bridge or just on a freeway or Something Like that . So these are continuous concerns. They say theyre certainly working to mitigate these circumstances. But then of course after we took that ride, we reached back out to cruise to ask for another interview. They said no one was available. But in a statement, they told us the reason the car acted that way is that it reached a Construction Zone. They argue that the other options were to cross several lanes, and so the car did what it thought was the safest, which was to pull over. But, raj, just to give people perspective, that Construction Zone is just a closed lane. The right lane was closed. That happens to all our commutes almost every day. Human drivers were able to cruise right past it. We know this. This is a work in progress. Whats the safety data here on these cars because im sure theyve provided it to you or youve dug around here. Certainly those in this industry are very quick to point out that human drivers are responsible for more than 42,000 trafficrelated fatalities every year in the u. S. Yeah. Theres only been one autonomous vehiclerelated fatality. That was back in 2018 in phoenix. Its important to note, though, raj, that its a bit difficult to do apples to apples. Youre talking about hundreds of millions of more humanled vehicles that log more than 3 trillion miles on the roadways every year. Cruise, for example, says that its logged more than 3 million miles and hasnt had a single fatality or even a lifethreatening injury. How many in San Francisco or wherever cruise is testing how many times have humans had to come out to kind of save you guys in the car . Interestingly, when there is a test driver in the car, they are required to file a report with the state every time that human driver has to override the system. So we obtained those records from the state department of transportation. We found out that in california just last year alone, those human drivers had to override the system more than 8,000 times. Okay. And, again, this is a work in progress. The good that comes out of this, we talked about it. No drunk driving. No one is checking their phone driving. There are positives once all these issues hopefully get worked out. Youre never going to have one of these cars go above the speed limit. They say, listen, when you look, there are certain metrics these Companies Say theyve analyzed. Theyve found that their cars, based on their analysis, actually outperfect human drivers. One of the major sticking points is these cars have difficulty interacting with people, and thats something that vehicles have to do every single day. So theres still a lot of road blocks. Before you go, what happens this thursday in a nutshell . Yeah. So interestingly, these cars have testing permits to operate in the state. But when it comes to actually collecting cash from customers, were talking about imitating uber and lyft as a rideshare company, they have to get approval from the California Public utilities commission. On thursday, those commissioners are going to vote to whether waymo and cruise, two of the largest selfdriving companies, whether they can actually expand their services to 24 hours a day, all parts of the city, every day. Right now its regulated to, what, six hours a day . Actually, waymo right now isnt allowed to actually collect any money, so their rides have to be free. Cruise is allowed to charge passengers, but only between the hours of 10 00 p. M. And 6 00 a. M. And only in certain parts of San Francisco. Oh, wow. Again, the vote would actually expand it to the entire city. Okay. Well see you at 11 00. Still to come, a craft beer revolution is happening in the east bay. Were going to introduce you to two brewe who arers welcome back to nbc bay area news tonight. Weve talked a lot about the recent closure of anchor brewing in San Francisco, but elsewhere in the bay area, the beer is flowing. Groundbreaking breweries in oakland. The beer looks like beer, but the guys who make the beer, theyre breaking the mold. Right near Jack London Square is the home of two notable breweries. Dokkabier, the first koreanowned brewery in oakland, and hella coastal, the citys only blackowned brewery. Today, its a fullfledged operation making its mark in a industry thats overwhelmingly white. Take a look. According to a survey in 2021 from the american brewers association, 94 of brewery owners are white. 2 asian. Less than 1 are black. Joining us now, the owners of hella coastal, gentlemen, nice to see you. Nice to have you on the program. Mario, lets start with you. How did hella coastal start . It essentially started just off of a hobby, a whim. Essentially we got into this competitive nature of wanting to do something together and knowing that weve gone to different breweries before and knowing that we wanted to create something of our own and put our own imprint on it. Essentially hella coastal brings a bit of oakland to the coast and essentially it just rang with us. I love to see it. Why arent there more black and asian owners in the Beer Industry . Is it a lack of interest or a lack of opportunity . I think asian people, black people alike both really love beer, and i think really its about the space and feeling welcome in that space. So our goal and, you know, as hella coastal is to create that space for black, brown allies to come together and enjoy craft beer and come to a place where they can be their authentic self. You guys do a lot of events you some funny looks whe they see two black guys as brs . I think i t people are really happy to see some change, you know. You know, when we were first starting out, a lot of breweries actually reached out to us and wanted to do collaborations, wanted to, you know, hear our story and, you know, support us and ask us if theres any ways that they could help us. So i think the whole industry, at least in the bay area, wants to see that change, and everybodys been supportive of it. Heres the big question. Mario, we talk about this is a great story, but i see the taps right behind you. Whats the best beer i should get when i come in . Im going to be biased, but im going to have to say all of them. The reason being is that we just released one just this past friday. Of course, the freshest is going to be the best. But every time we do a beer, we come up with a recipe, we make sure that theyre approachable and that the styles are theyre different between each other. So we like to highlight the hops. We like to highlight the gains and the yeast that goes into it. So every time we brew a new beer, thats going to be our favorite one. I love that. Real quick, a shoutout to the guys. You coopt a space with a korean beer maker. You like those guys as well . Oh, yeah. Yeah, its been a great, great relationship. Before, it was previously federation brewing, and then when they decided to start to upstale their business, it just was a nobrainer that the relationship that we already had has actually given us more opportunity to brew more often. Its just one of those things that i think that not only oakland needs, but i think the bay area needs. I cant wait to come in for a couple pints. Gentlemen, thanks for your time tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Lets take you outside now. A live look at the bay bridge. Fog rolling through. Jeff ranieri is going to join us next with our forecast. Stay with us. Want more e from your r vitam . Get m more with n natures bob. From t the firsteever tripe actition sleep s supplement. To daily d digestive s suppor. To more wewellness sololutios every daday. Get m more with n natures bob. Welcome back. You got about 15, 20 minutes to buy that lotto ticket. Ticket sales close at 7 45 tonight for the recordsetting Mega Millions jackpot. 1. 58 billion is on the line. The biggest jackpot ever. If you win, you get to choose the lump sum option before taxes. Its about 800 million. The drawing is at 8 00 tonight. Jeff ranieri is with us now. Take those taxes. You can have the taxes. Just give me that chunk. It would be great. Good luck to everyone out there. Check out these numbers on my weather boards tonight. Were seeing numbers dropping anywhere from 18 to 8 degrees cooler here across a lot of those inland valleys. Let me show you a closer look at that microclimate forecast. If youre headed out over the next couple of hours, make sure to have that jacket with you. After 90s this time at night for the past couple of days, it just feels so nice to get these 60s back across napa and concord. Still some 70s through livermore and san jose. As we roll through tomorrow morning, that fog is back here to start. Now, it likely will linger near the bay, north bay, and coast, even until about 11 00 in the morning. Then for the afternoon, sunshine for the east bay, south bay, and partly cloudy skies for the north bay. Morning temperatures back again in the 50s. So a jacket for the morning and not too bad through the afternoon. Well be right near average to a little bit below. That will leave us with 83 in concord. 77 napa. Those chilly 60s at the coast. My sevenday forecast holds with 80s through saturday. We warm it up into some 90s by sunday, monday, and tuesday. Were watching some monsoonal moisture to the south and east of us on thursday, but chances right now, raj, about 20 to 35 . Well keep a close eye on that. Thank jeff. Coming up in prime t here on nbc bay area, americas got talent at 8 00 with the last auditions of the season. Then its hot wheels ultimate challenge at 10 00. We are back live and local with our newscast at 11 00. Thats going to do it for us at 7 00. For everyone here at nbc bay area, thanks for joining us. Enjoy your evening. We hope to see you back at 11 00. Tonight onon access hollllywood think about what kind of parent he would be. What if something happene