L.A. law enforcement's treatment of journalists during protests is once again under scrutiny

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

Abraham Márquez, a reporter with the nonprofit investigative news startup Southlander, was filming a tense standoff between Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and immigrant rights protesters in Paramount on Saturday night when he saw a deputy aim a 'less-lethal' launcher in his direction.
Sensing a confrontation, Márquez said, he raised his press credential and 'kept yelling press, press, press,' even as he turned and began running in the opposite direction. He barely made it a few feet before he felt a stinging pain as first one foam round, then another slammed into his buttocks and his back.
'They just unloaded,' he said of the deputies.
He was nearly struck again a short time later, when deputies riding by in an armored vehicle sprayed foam rounds into a gas station parking lot where Márquez and a KTLA-TV news crew had sought cover, he said. He was shaken, but said that he felt compelled to keep reporting.
'I got hit and what not but I'm glad I was there to document it,' he said.
The incident was one of dozens in which journalists have been shot with less-lethal police rounds, tear-gassed, shoved and detained while chronicling the ongoing civil unrest and military intervention in the nation's second largest city, according to interviews and video footage reviewed by The Times.
The police actions have drawn angry condemnation from public officials and 1st Amendment advocates. There have been multiple reported instances of reporters of not only being struck by projectiles, but also having their bags searched, being threatened with arrest, and getting blocked from areas where they had a right under state law to observe police activity.
Among those hit by police projectiles were several Times reporters in the course of covering protests in downtown L.A. over the past few days.
The LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff's Department have faced criticism and lawsuits over their treatment of news media during past crises, but some covering the recent events say the situation has only gotten worse with the inflammatory anti-media messaging coming from the Trump White House.
'The price for free speech should not be this high,' said Arturo Carmona, president and publisher of Caló News, a news site that covers issues that matter to English-speaking Latinos. 'Several of our reporters, several of whom are women of color, have been harassed and attacked by law enforcement.'
In one high-profile case, a CNN reporter was briefly detained by officers while doing a live-on air segment.
In another, Australian TV news reporter Lauren Tomasi was shot in the leg by a less-lethal round by an riot gear-clad officer moments after she wrapped up a live on-air segment. The incident became an international affair, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Albanese calling it 'horrific.'
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said it 'sends a terrible message,' and several city councilmembers referenced it while grilling LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on Tuesday about his department's response to the protests.
In a statement, the Sheriff's Department said it was reviewing video footage from several incidents involving the news media to determine whether any of its deputies were involved.
The department said it is 'committed to maintaining an open and transparent relationship with the media and ensuring that journalists can safely perform their duties, especially during protests, acts of civil disobedience, and public gatherings.'
'Our goal is to support press freedom while upholding public safety and operational integrity,' the statement said.
LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas said that two of the roughly 15 complaints the department was investigating as of Tuesday involved possible mistreatment of journalists — a number that is expected to grow in the coming days and weeks
Rimkunas said the department decided to launch an investigation of the Tomasi incident on its own, but has since been in contact with the Australian consulate.
A coalition of 27 press and civil liberties advocacy groups wrote to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday 'to express alarm that federal officers may have violated the First Amendment rights of journalists covering recent protests and unrest related to immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.'
Multiple journalists who covered the protests told The Times that officers and deputies used physical force or the threat of arrest to remove them from areas where they have a right to be.
In doing so, the journalists said, police were ignoring protections established by state law for journalists covering protests, as well as their own departments' policies adopted after mass protests after George Floyd's murder in 2020 and over the clearance of a homeless encampment in Echo Park in 2021.
On Saturday, journalist Ben Camacho was documenting the scene in Paramount, where images of people vandalizing and burning cars dominated the nightly newscasts. Wearing his press pass and with a camera hanging around his neck, he watched in shock as law enforcement opened fire on the crowd with less-lethal munitions, striking Nick Stern, a British news photographer, who crumbled to the ground in front of him.
After helping carry Stern to safety, Camacho said he too was struck by a round in the kneecap.
'I start to screaming pretty much at the top of my lungs,' he said. 'It was like a sledgehammer.'
He noted that many people are working on freelance contracts that don't offer medical insurance, and said officers sometimes brush aside reporters with credentials from smaller independent outlets, which have an important role in monitoring events on the ground.
Some police officials — who were not authorized to speak publicly — said officers try their best to accommodate reporters, but the situation on the street involves split-second decisions in a chaotic environment where they find themselves being attacked. They also contend that journalists from newer outlets or those who primarily post on social media act in adversarial or confrontational ways toward officers.
Los Angeles Press Club Press Rights Chair Adam Rose said he has been collecting examples of officers from local, state and federal agencies violating the rights of journalists — seemingly ignoring the lessons learned and promises made the wake of past protests.
Rose said many of the incidents were documented in videos that journalists themselves posted on social media. As of Wednesday morning, the tally was 43 and counting.
The mistreatment of journalists at the recent protests are part of a 'history of ugly treatment by police,' Rose said, which included the 1970 killing of one of the city's leading Latino media voices, Ruben Salazar, who had been covering a Chicano rights protest when he was struck by a tear-gas canister fired by a sheriff's deputy.
Even in cases where police abuses are well-documented on video, discipline of the offending officers is rare, Rose said.
With plunging revenues leading to the downsizing of many legacy newsrooms, a new generation of citizen journalists have taken a vital role in covering communities across the country — their reporting is protected as their mainstream counterparts, he said.
'The reality is police are not the ones who're allowed to decide who is press,' he said.
Some larger news companies have taken to hiring protective details for their reporters in the field, largely in response to aggressive crowds.
On Saturday, L.A. Daily News reporter Ryanne Mena was struck in the head by a projectile fired by law enforcement during a demonstration in Paramount.
She wasn't sure whether it was a tear gas canister or less-lethal munition, but said she later sought medical treatment and was diagnosed with a concussion. The day before she was hit in the thigh by another projectile while reporting downtown outside the jail, she said.
Covering a few prior protests had taught her to always be mindful of her surroundings and to 'never have my back toward anyone with a weapon.'
'It's still kind of unbelievable that that happened,' she said of her concussion. 'It's unacceptable that that happened that other journalists were targeted.'
Times staff writers Connor Sheets and David Zahniser contributed to this report.