Journalist Shot by Police at LA Protests
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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An Australian journalistm Lauren Tomasim was struck by police-fired projectiles during escalating protests in Los Angeles this weekend, amid broader national unrest following President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement raids.
Why It Matters
The shooting of a journalist by police using less-lethal munitions raises international concerns about press freedom and the safety of reporters covering unrest. It highlights the increasingly aggressive stance of U.S. law enforcement toward media during demonstrations.
After a series of immigration raids on Friday sparked a large protest in the city, the president federalized the California National Guard and deployed troops to Los Angeles, despite objections from Governor Gavin Newsom.
U.S. Correspondent Lauren Tomasi has been caught in the crossfire as the LAPD fired rubber bullets at protesters in the heart of Los Angeles. #9News
LATEST: https://t.co/l5w7JxixxB pic.twitter.com/nvQ7m9TGLj — 9News Australia (@9NewsAUS) June 9, 2025
What To Know
Tomasi, a U.S. correspondent for 9News Australia, was hit by less-lethal rounds near Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday evening while documenting clashes between demonstrators and heavily armed police.
Less-lethal munitions can refer to rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, and electric-shock weapons, among others.
A spokesperson for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: "The Australian Consulate-General in Los Angeles is in contact with an Australian injured in protests, and stands ready to provide consular assistance if required."
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been urged to seek an "urgent explanation" from Trump.
National Guard troops were mobilized to reinforce local police, and armored vehicles and military personnel became visible across key intersections in L.A.
Lauren Tomasi was caught in the crossfire as the LAPD fired rubber bullets during protests on Sunday.
Lauren Tomasi was caught in the crossfire as the LAPD fired rubber bullets during protests on Sunday.
9News Australia
In recent years, organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders have flagged the United States for a rise in press-targeted violence during protests.
According to a 2024 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, attacks on journalists in the U.S. increased by more than 50 percent from 2023 to 2024, with members of the media facing threats including violence, online harassment, legal challenges, and attacks by police.
Reporters Without Borders has also condemned arrests and violence against journalists covering protests, urging law enforcement agencies to protect and respect the rights of all media personnel.
How Did the Protests Break Out?
Protests in Los Angeles erupted following immigration raids conducted in the city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE). As tensions escalated, Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops and used federal authority to place them under national command, bypassing Newsom without invoking the Insurrection Act.
Heavily armed police and National Guard troops were deployed to disperse demonstrators in Downtown L.A. What were described initially as peaceful protests escalated as crowds attempted to block roads and took part in vandalism.
Law enforcement officials cited threats to public safety, including property damage and officer injuries, as justification for escalating their tactics. However, video footage captured by bystanders and media raised questions about the proportionality of force used, including against credentialed reporters.
What Happens Next
As investigations into Tomasi's injury begin, the Australian government has reportedly initiated diplomatic inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the shooting. The LAPD has not publicly commented on whether the journalist was targeted or struck inadvertently.
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USA Today
20 minutes ago
- USA Today
Multiple journalists injured by police nonlethal rounds while covering LA protests
Multiple journalists injured by police nonlethal rounds while covering LA protests Show Caption Hide Caption Australian journalist shot with a rubber bullet in Los Angeles Australian journalist from 9News, Lauren Tomasi, was shot with a rubber bullet while reporting from the protests in Los Angeles. Multiple members of the media have been injured by nonlethal rounds fired by law enforcement while covering dayslong protests over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Los Angeles, prompting the Committee to Protect Journalists to sound an alarm about the intimidation of reporters. Authorities braced for a fifth day of demonstrations on June 10, with President Donald Trump ordering the National Guard and members of the U.S. Marine Corps in a show of force against unrest. The administration's stepping in has also ignited a clash between local leaders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the federal government. As officers use force against protesters, some journalists reporting on the melee have been caught by nonlethal rubber rounds and other projectiles. Adam Rose, the secretary of the Los Angeles Press Club, has documented more than 30 incidents of reporters, photographers and other media professionals impacted by police actions that range from searching a journalist's bag to firing tear gas or rubber bullets at them. In one viral video, an officer appears to aim and take fire at Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi, who yelped in pain when she was hit in the leg. More: Australian journalist shot with nonlethal bullet while reporting on LA protests The committee, which advocates for press freedom and documents cases of journalists who are killed, imprisoned or missing, said it was "greatly concerned" by the reports of officers' shooting nonlethal rounds at reporters on the ground. "Any attempt to discourage or silence media coverage by intimidating or injuring journalists should not be tolerated,' Katherine Jacobsen, program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, said in a statement. 'It is incumbent upon authorities to respect the media's role of documenting issues of public interest.' The Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol didn't immediately respond to a USA TODAY inquiry on the injured journalists. The department told the Committee to Protect Journalists it will investigate the incidents. LA protest updates: Newsom calls Trump's Marine deployment a 'blatant abuse of power' Journalists injured by rubber bullets, other nonlethal rounds Tomasi, the Australian reporter, was sore after being hit by the rubber bullet but otherwise unharmed, her employer Australia's 9News said. British freelance photographer Nick Stern had to undergo emergency surgery after also being hit in the leg with a nonlethal round, he told the BBC. Stern said he was covering the protests in Los Angeles on June 8 when he was hit by a 3-inch "plastic bullet," BBC reported. He said he was wearing his press credentials and wearing a big camera around his neck. "There was something hard sticking out of the back of my leg and my leg was getting wet from blood," he told the outlet. Stern told BBC protesters helped carry him away from the "danger area" and a medic applied a tourniquet. "I intend, as soon as I am well enough, to get back out there," he told BBC. "This is too important and it needs documenting." A New York Post photographer was also hit with a rubber bullet in the head, the outlet reported. Toby Canham was standing just off the 101 freeway in Los Angeles the evening of June 8 "when a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer suddenly turned his weapon toward him and fired from about 100 yards away," the Post reported. He went to the hospital for whiplash and neck pain and had a bruise on his forehead. 'It's a real shame. I completely understand being in the position where you could get injured, but at the same time, there was no justification for even aiming the rifle at me and pulling the trigger, so I'm a bit pissed off about that, to be honest,' Canham said. Officers also shot Ryanne Mena, a reporter with the Southern California News Group, with pepper ball bullets, which contain a chemical akin to pepper spray, she said in a post on social media. Police briefly detained CNN correspondent Jason Carroll while he was on the air covering protests on June 9. In-studio anchors briefly lost contact with Carroll, who could be seen being led away by LAPD officers with hands behind his back. An officer can be heard telling Carroll: "We're letting you go. You can't come back. If you come back, you will be arrested." "You take a lot of risks as press. This is low on that scale of risks, but it is something that I wasn't expecting, simply because we've been out here all day," Carroll said. "I've covered any number of protests, and normally the officers realize that the press is there doing a job." What's happening in LA protests Protests began on June 6 in response to the Trump administration's crackdown with immigration raids in Southern California. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is carrying out a directive from Trump to find immigrants living in the United States without legal status. Protests have sprung up against the sweeps the agency is carrying out in various neighborhoods. The protests began largely peacefully after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps near Los Angeles resulted in more than 40 arrests, but flared up when heavily armed, masked agents raided Los Angeles businesses. For several days, the demonstrations have grown and turned chaotic and sometimes violent, with police and protesters clashing in the streets. A tense standoff unfolded between the administration and California authorities, who say the use of the National Guard and U.S. Marines is an unlawful subversion of Newsom's authority. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called Trump's escalation of military presence a "deliberate attempt to create disorder and chaos in our city." On Monday, LAPD said protesters threw objects at officers near the federal courthouse, prompting use of gas canisters and other munitions. Bass said over 100 people were arrested Monday night, blaming "fringe groups" for violence. Contributing: Thao Nguyen, John Bacon, Greta Cross and Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAY
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How viral images are shaping views of L.A.'s immigration showdown
As protesters and police officers clashed in the streets of Los Angeles, a parallel conflict raged on social media, as immigration advocates and President Donald Trump's allies raced to shape public opinion on the impacts of mass deportations on American life. The sprawling protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids were captured from all angles by cellphones and body cameras and streamed in real time, giving a visceral immediacy to a conflict that led to more than 50 arrests and orders from the Trump administration to deploy the National Guard. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Amateur videographers and online creators shared some of the mayhem's most-talked-about videos and images, often devoid of context and aimed at different audiences. Clips showing officers firing less-lethal rounds at an Australian journalist or mounted police directing their horses to stride over a sitting man fueled outrage on one side, while those of self-driving Waymo cars on fire and protesters holding Mexican flags stoked the other. The protests have become the biggest spectacle yet of the months-long online war over deportations, as Trump allies work to convince Americans that the issue of undocumented immigration demands aggressive action. But immigrant families and advocates have also been winning attention, and seeking public support, through emotional clips of crying families grappling with removal orders, anti-ICE gatherings and young children in federal custody. The messaging war comes at a time of polarized public sentiment over Trump's immigration policies. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in April found that roughly half the country believed Trump's deportations had gone too far, while the other half thought his actions were about right or hadn't gone far enough. 'To advance your side of the story, you need a piece of content that the algorithm likes. You need something that really grabs people's attention by the throat and doesn't let it go,' said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University's Khoury College of Computer Sciences. 'If you're on the pro-ICE side of this, you need to find visual images of these protests that look really scary, look really dangerous because that's what's going to draw human attention,' she added. But if 'you don't think that ICE should be taking moms away from their families and kids, you're going to have a video that starts with a crying child's face.' A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said Trump's digital strategists were following the president's lead by spotlighting images of destruction while insisting that he would always intervene in moments of unrest. The White House, which has said the ICE deportations are necessary to solve a national crisis, on Sunday posted an Instagram photo of Trump and a warning that looters and rioters would be given 'no mercy.' 'We're obviously following the president's direction. He is driving the message through his posts and his comments to the press,' the official said. 'We are definitely playing offense here. We are once again boxing the Democrats into the corner of defending criminal illegal aliens.' The unrest and its online propagation also heightened activity around projects like People Over Papers, a crowdsourced map for tracking the locations of ICE officers. Reports flooded in as the clashes continued, said Celeste, a project organizer in L.A. who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of government retribution. 'I haven't slept all weekend,' she said. She added, however, that she worried violent imagery from the ground could hurt the protesters' cause. She said she planned to start making Spanish-language videos for her 51,000 TikTok followers, explaining to skeptics that the violence isn't reflective of the protests, which she sees as necessary to counter ICE's agenda. The L.A. unrest followed weeks of online skirmishes over deportations, some of which have been touched off by the White House's strategy to lean into policy fights with bold and aggressive messaging. The White House last month posted a video that it said showed an 'EPIC takedown of 5 illegal aliens' outside a home improvement store and included an ICE hotline to solicit more tips. The clip, recorded by ICE agents' cameras, was liked 68,000 times but also drew criticism from commenters, who called it 'disturbing' and said this 'isn't a reality show.' After a similar ICE raid on Saturday outside a Home Depot in Paramount, a predominantly Latino suburb of L.A., witnesses sent out alerts on social media, and protesters raced to the scene. Within hours, the Trump administration called for the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to neutralize the unrest. On his Truth Social account a week earlier, Trump celebrated the Supreme Court clearing the way for the removal of some immigrants' legal protections by posting a photo of a jet-filled sky with the phrase, 'Let the Deportations Begin!' The White House has also posted stylized mug shots of unnamed immigrants it said were charged with heinous crimes. 'I love this version of the white house,' one commenter said, with a cry-laugh emoji. 'It feels like a movie every day with President Trump.' During the protests, the administration has worked with new-media figures and online influencers to promote its political points. Phil McGraw, the TV personality known as Dr. Phil who now runs the conservative media network Merit Street, posted an exclusive interview with border czar Tom Homan and embedded with ICE officers last week during L.A. raids, as the company's spokesperson first told CNN. Some top administration officials have worked to frame the protests in militaristic terms, with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Saturday sharing a video of the protest and calling it 'an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.' Others, like Vice President JD Vance, have treated it as a chance for dark jokes. When posters on X said Vance could do the 'funniest thing ever' by deporting Derek Guy, a prominent menswear commentator who discussed how his family had been undocumented after fleeing Vietnam, the vice president on Monday posted a brief clip of Jack Nicholson nodding with a sinister grin. Some far-right influencers urged their followers to identify people caught on camera during the civil unrest. In one X post with more than 29,000 likes, the account End Wokeness shared a video of masked figures throwing rocks at police from an overpass and said, 'These are insurrectionists trying to kill cops. Make them famous.' In more left-leaning online spaces, some posters watching from the sidelines offered advice on how protesters could best position their cause to the rest of the world. On the r/ICE_raids subreddit, some posters urged L.A. protesters to stop carrying non-American flags. It's 'adding ammo to ICE's justification,' one poster said, attaching a screenshot of a Homeland Security post showing masked protesters with Mexican flags. Many accounts, knowingly or unknowingly, shared images that warped the reality of what was happening on the ground. An X account with 388,000 followers called US Homeland Security News, which is not affiliated with DHS but paid for one of X's 'verified' blue check marks, posted a photo of bricks that it said had been ordered to be 'used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It's Civil War!!' The photo actually originated on the website of a Malaysian construction-supply company. The post has nevertheless been viewed more than 800,000 times. On Sunday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's X account tried to combat some of the misinformation directly, saying a viral video post being passed around as evidence of the day's chaos was actually five years old. Even before the L.A. protests, the increased attention on ICE activity had driven a rush of online organizing and real-world information gathering, with some people opposed to mass deportations tracking the movements of ICE officers with plans to foil or disrupt raids. In one viral TikTok post last week, a Minneapolis protester marching in a crowd outside the site of a rumored ICE raid said he had learned of it from Reddit, where a photo had been posted of Homeland Security Investigations officers outside a Mexican restaurant. The local sheriff's office later told news crews that the operation was not an immigration-enforcement case and that no arrests had been made. Some online creators treated the L.A. clashes as a prized opportunity for viral content. On Reddit, accounts with names like LiveNews_24H posted 'crazy footage' compilations of the unrest and said it looked like a 'war zone.' On YouTube, Damon Heller, who comments on police helicopter footage and scanner calls under the name Smoke N' Scan, streamed the clashes on Sunday for nearly 12 hours. Jeremy Lee Quinn, a photographer who shares protest footage to his social media followers, posted to Instagram on Saturday a video of protesters cheering from a bridge as officers tried to extinguish a burning police vehicle. Quinn, who also documented Black Lives Matter marches and the U.S. Capitol riots, said viewers on the left and right treat viral videos like weapons in their arsenal. Far-left viewers might take away from the videos ideas for militant tactics to use in future protests, he said, while far-right viewers will promote the videos to suggest the other side craves more violent crime. Either way, his material gets seen - including through reposts by groups such as the LibsOfReddit subreddit, which shares screenshots mocking liberal views on undocumented immigrants and transgender people. 'You end up with a far-right ecosystem that thrives on these viral moments,' Quinn said. As short-form video and social media platforms increasingly become many Americans' news sources of choice, experts worry they could also amp up the fear and outrage engendered by polarizing events. The fragmentation of social media and the attention-chasing machinery of its recommendation algorithms helps ensure that 'there are a lot of people talking past each other,' said Northeastern's Edelson, not seeing one another's content or 'even aware of the facts that are relevant to the other side.' Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said videos can play a uniquely forceful role in shaping people's reactions to current events because they 'encapsulate the emotion of the moment.' 'There's a heavy dose of misinformation,' he added. 'And, you know, people just end up getting angrier and angrier.' 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CBS News
29 minutes ago
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Looters target several stores in downtown Los Angeles after fourth day of protests
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