Our thoughts go out to longtime local TV reporter Dan Noyes, who was attacked Sunday by teens in the Presidio — but he foiled their attempt to steal his bike by threatening to put them on TV.
KGO I-Team investigative reporter Dan Noyes has covered plenty of crime stories, but Sunday night, became the victim of crime himself. In a video Noyes just posted to his Facebook and Twitter accounts Wednesday morning, we see freshly rattled Noyes describing that he was assaulted in an encounter with a group of teens, one of whom tried to steal his bike. And while Noyes has a badly bruised and possibly injured arm from the encounter, he did stymie the would-be bike thief by threatening, “You're about to be on Channel 7.”
Update: Noyes tells SFist that he did indeed suffer a broken elbow with a fractured radial head.
We realize it is kind of unfair to post a picture of a freshly roughed-up Dan Noyes, though the screenshot is important, as it establishes where the incident happened. It was Sunday before sundown, and he describes the location as “right by Sports Basement” in the Presidio, and a stone’s throw from the Palace of Fine Arts.
“I was riding along this bike path just now,” Noyes says in the video he took right after the incident. “I’m coming home, and I see a group of probably 15 young teens, young teens, probably couldn’t drive yet.”
“One of the kids all of a sudden just rushes over and body-blocks me off my bike,” he continues. “I came crashing to the ground, my left elbow is pretty darned sore, I hope it’s not a hairline fracture or something. But I nailed hard onto the ground. I got up, and the kid had grabbed my bike and started running away.”
“I jumped up and went after him, and said, ‘You're about to be on Channel 7.’ The kids, at that, just scattered,” he says.
The quick-thinking Noyes also got a photo of the group, whom he said split between heading toward the Tunnel Tops and the Golden Gate Bridge. He adds that he thinks the youth who tried to steal his bike is circled below.
And Noyes did suffer a pretty bad bruise, also shown in the video. But his reporting has not missed a beat, as after a rough night Sunday, the resilient Dan Noyes was right back to reporting and filing stories on Monday.
If you have any information on this incident, you’re asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at 415-575-4444, or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.
Related: KGO-TV Reporter Luz Peña Recovering From Near-Fatal Ski Accident in Tahoe [SFist]
Image Dan Noyes via Facebook
