Press club sues Los Angeles, police chief over alleged attacks on journalists

Washington Post

16-06-2025

The Los Angeles Press Club sued the city of Los Angeles and its police chief, Jim McDonnell, over alleged police violence toward journalists covering the ongoing protests of immigration raids in L.A.
The press club, which advocates for journalists in Southern California, filed its lawsuit Monday in federal district court in Los Angeles, saying that the defendants violated journalists' First Amendment rights by using 'excessive force' against them.
'Being a journalist in Los Angeles is now a dangerous profession,' the group wrote in its complaint. 'LAPD actions during the June 2025 protests in downtown Los Angeles reveal a brazen refusal to abide by the Constitution and state law and repeats the same conduct by the Defendant City repeatedly held to be unconstitutional by the federal courts for the past 25 years.'
Law enforcement at the protests have routinely shot less-lethal ammunition at protesters, in some cases hitting and injuring members of the press. Sergio Olmos, a reporter for CalMatters, told The Washington Post last week that out of hundreds of days of protests that he's covered in his career, he's never seen the police use so many less-lethal rounds.
Adam Rose, press rights chair of the L.A. Press Club, compiled a spreadsheet of more than 50 alleged incidents of potential police violations of journalists' rights covering this month's protests starting on June 6. This includes the case of Australian television correspondent Lauren Tomasi, named in the complaint, who was hit with a less-lethal round while broadcasting live on air. Olmos' case and The Post's reporting were also cited in the lawsuit.
'The Los Angeles Police Department has a long history of violating the rights of the press and public at protests. And we shouldn't have needed this lawsuit,' said David Loy of the First Amendment Coalition, one of the attorneys for the press club. 'But unfortunately, we see it as unfortunately necessary to go back to courts to protect the rights of the press to cover protests without fear of attack or assault.'
The LAPD said it 'does not comment on pending litigation.' McDonnell has defended the department's response to what it has called 'hostile and riotous' protesters. The Los Angeles mayor's office did not respond to a request for comment.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that the city and the LAPD violated journalists' rights under the First and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantee the right to a free press and due process, respectively, as well as multiple California state statutes.
L.A. Press Club is joined by another plaintiff, Status Coup, an investigative outlet whose reporters say they were hit with less-lethal munitions while covering the protests.
Carol Sobel, a former ACLU lawyer acting as lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said that the LAPD hasn't followed the California legislature nor precedent from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which she says has clearly ruled that journalists have a right to access in protests. 'They just don't give a damn,' she said. 'And they act with impunity. So we're hoping that the federal courts will hold them accountable.'
LAPD is only one of many law enforcement agencies on the ground in Los Angeles, alongside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the California Highway Patrol, as well as federal forces from the California National Guard and the Department of Homeland Security.
Sobel said she plans to sue other law enforcement agencies, too, starting with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.