{"id":33022,"date":"2025-11-01T04:43:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T04:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/33022\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T04:43:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T04:43:23","slug":"oakland-museum-of-california-speaks-out-about-stolen-artifacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/33022\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland Museum of California Speaks Out About Stolen Artifacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFollowing a theft at the Oakland Museum of California<\/a>\u2018s (OMCA) off-site storage facility earlier this month, the museum released a statement on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn October 15, around 3:30 a.m., a thief or group of thieves broke into the museum\u2019s off-site storage facility, taking more than 1,000 objects. A number of additional details surrounding the case were initially withheld, so as not to impact the Oakland Police Department and the FBI\u2019s Art Crime Team\u2019s ongoing investigation. Now, with their approval, the museum has issued a statement on the events.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Exterior<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBased on current findings, investigators believe this was\u00a0a crime of opportunity, not a targeted theft,\u201d OCMA\u2019s statement reads.\u00a0\u201cThere is no indication that the perpetrators specifically identified the facility as museum storage or sought particular artworks or artifacts. Instead, it appears they gained access and took items that were most easily available.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe museum confirmed that the burglars took off with six\u00a0Native American baskets,\u00a0several\u00a019th-century scrimshaw objects, a number of\u00a0daguerreotypes, modernist metalwork jewelry pieces, and historic memorabilia such as political pins, award ribbons, and souvenir tokens.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf particular concern are the stolen Native American baskets. The connected tribe has asked that their name not be public and that the museum not release any additional details about the baskets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is a loss not only for OMCA, but for the broader community,\u201d said\u00a0Lori Fogarty, executive director and CEO of OMCA, in a statement. \u201cThe Museum takes its responsibility to steward California\u2019s history and cultural legacy with the utmost seriousness and remains committed to recovering the stolen items and ensuring their continued care for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 100,000-square-foot warehouse holds more than 2 million historical artifacts, many of which have been donated to the OMCA.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnyone with information on the theft should contact the Oakland Police Department\u2019s burglary section (at 510-238-3951) or the FBI Art Crime Team (at tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a theft at the Oakland Museum of California\u2018s (OMCA) off-site storage facility earlier this month, the museum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[22492,143,145,2536,144],"class_list":["post-33022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-art-theft","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-museum-of-california","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}