Dozens Of Journalists Targeted, Shot, Detained While Covering LA Protests, Press Org Says
Shocking video and photos taken amid the ongoing immigration protests in Los Angeles show journalists and news crews being shot, detained and forced off public property by law enforcement, raising concerns of excessive force and First Amendment rights violations.
There have been more than 30 incidents of police violence against journalists as of Tuesday, including 20 injuries, at least five of which required emergency room or urgent care visits, said Adam Rose, the press rights chair with the Los Angeles Press Club, which released a statement Monday urging an end to the targeting of journalists whose work is constitutionally protected.
The list of injuries includes a freelance photojournalist requiring emergency surgery Sunday night after being shot in the leg with a three-inch piece of plastic that he believes was designed to be shot and explode above a crowd.
Graphic photos shared with HuffPost show a gaping wound in Nick Stern's right thigh that he said has left him unable to walk or move without assistance.
'Why this device was shot at human, kind of, waist high level, I do not know. The people around me at that time was doing nothing more than waving Mexican flags,' he told HuffPost.
Stern, who said he has three decades of experience photographing public protests, including in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the George Floyd protests in 2020, expressed concern that people may die from the excessive use of force that he witnessed and experienced firsthand.
'I never thought for one moment that I'd actually have to be fearful of law enforcement during a public protest but that seems to be where the danger to journalists comes from,' he said.
Also Sunday, photographer Toby Canham said he was shot in the forehead with a rubber bullet while snapping pictures of law enforcement gathered along a highway.
The British Army veteran, who was on assignment for the New York Post, photographed the projectile flying at him split seconds before it hit him in the head. He was treated for whiplash and neck pain at a local hospital Monday, the Post reported.
'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,' he told the paper, while sharing photos of his bloodied head.
Australian broadcast journalist Lauren Tomasi had just finished reporting live from Los Angeles' downtown area on Sunday when her news outlet, 9 News, reported that an officer turned his gun toward her and fired a rubber bullet from close range. Video shows Tomasi jumping and yelling in pain.
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. #9NewsLATEST: https://t.co/l5w7JxixxBpic.twitter.com/nvQ7m9TGLj
— 9News Australia (@9NewsAUS) June 9, 2025
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs immediately joined in on condemning the shooting, stating 'that all journalists should be able to do their work safely.'
CNN's Jason Carroll was also reporting live from the scene on Monday when cameras captured him being detained by officers with his hands bound behind his back. Another video posted by reporter Sergio Olmos shows Carroll and a videographer being violently shoved by police while they're standing along a sidewalk.
Similar videos posted on social media show journalists being shoved, shot and pushed out of public areas despite audibly identifying themselves as members of the press.
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A post shared by NBCLA (@nbcla)
Homeland Security agents shot me and other journalists with pepper ball bullets yesterday in Los Angeles pic.twitter.com/2JX28M69QO
— @ryannemena.bsky.social (@ryannemena) June 7, 2025
The LA Press Club joined several press freedom organizations Monday expressing concern to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that federal officers are violating journalists' First Amendment rights while they cover the protests.
'In some cases, federal officers appear to have deliberately targeted journalists who were doing nothing more than their job covering the news,' a letter addressed to Noem by the organizations states.
'Under the First Amendment, journalists who are merely reporting on events and not interfering with federal operations cannot be subject to general dispersal orders and 'cannot be punished for the violent acts of others,' and the 'proper response' to any unlawful conduct is 'to arrest those who actually engage in such conduct, rather than to suppress legitimate First Amendment conduct as a prophylactic measure,'' the letter continues.
Rose told HuffPost they have not received a response from DOH as of Tuesday. Noem's office also did not immediately respond to HuffPost's request for comment.
Trump Sets National Guard On Los Angeles As Protesters Counter Immigration Raids: Live Updates
CNN Journalist Reports On Being 'Detained' By Police As It Happens
Reporter Gets Hit By Rubber Bullet At LA Protest, Sparking Shock Allegation
FBI Puts LA Protester On 'Most Wanted' List As Government Threatens Crackdown
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Washington Post
30 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Live updates: Nationwide protests planned ahead of Trump military parade for Army's birthday
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CBS News
31 minutes ago
- CBS News
Trump's military parade today isn't the first in the U.S. — but they're rare. Here's a look back.
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The U.S. marked the end of the Gulf War with parades in New York City and Washington in the first major military display on the streets of D.C. since the early decades of the Cold War. The festivities in the capital featured around 8,000 military personnel, tanks, missile launchers, fireworks shows and an address by then-President George H.W. Bush. Some 800,000 people attended the event, which cost around $12 million, The Washington Post reported in 1991, or just under $29 million in today's dollars. Hunter Ledbetter, a Marine reservist who was deployed to Iraq during the war, told the Post at the time that it was "the most exciting moment of my life." The parade — which recognized the U.S.'s campaign to drive Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait — was largely uncontroversial, Simpson said: "No one objected to that parade." Troops march over the Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., as they head towards the Pentagon during the National Victory Day Parade on June 8, 1991. DOUG MILLS Still, the parades drew some pushback. Some critics questioned the D.C. Gulf War parade's price tag, and D.C. officials said the procession of heavy tanks had left tread marks on the city's streets. New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis criticized the New York parade since it followed an uprising by Iraq's Kurds that Hussein's regime brutally suppressed. "Honor is due the soldiers who were in the gulf," Lewis wrote at the time. "But for other reasons — reasons all too painfully evident — it is clear now that a celebratory parade would be inappropriate. Fireworks while Kurdish babies die?" Cold War inaugurations Presidential inaugural parades often include some military personnel, dating back to the first inauguration of President George Washington in 1789. In the early decades of the Cold War, the festivities also sometimes featured tanks and missiles on the streets of the capital. Some military equipment appears in photos from the 1949 parade after President Harry Truman's swearing-in, President Dwight Eisenhower's 1953 and 1957 inaugurations and President John F. Kennedy's 1961 festivities. Kennedy's inauguration featured a replica of the PT boat that the new president served on during World War II. The entire event cost around $1 million in 1961 dollars — or more than $10 million today — paid for by private donors, The New York Times wrote at the time. A Navy PT boat rides high above Pennsylvania Avenue on January 20, 1961 as the inaugural parade passes the presidential reviewing stand. President John Kennedy waves to sailors aboard. Anonymous / AP Army tanks move along Pennsylvania Avenue during the Inaugural Parade for President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Jan. 21, 1953. Anonymous / AP Simpson says inauguration parades sometimes included a few tanks as an exhibition, but they were typically "much more limited" than the parade planned for this weekend. "It wasn't like Pennsylvania Avenue was lined with tanks," he said. Parades with military equipment became less common after the 1960s. That could be due to the Vietnam War, which was deeply unpopular in its later years, and the eventual easing of Cold War tensions. "After Vietnam, parades get complicated because [parades are always] linked to the outcomes of the wars and the conduct of them," said Aaron O'Connell, a history professor at the University of Texas, Austin. "And that makes it more difficult to cheer and throw a ticker tape parade, when people are coming home in ones and twos, and they're not coming home in large units, and the war hasn't gone as well as we would've liked." World Wars I and II New York City marked victory in World War II with a massive military parade on Fifth Avenue in early 1946. The event included thousands of members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and dozens of tanks and howitzers, requiring planners to close off the Manhattan Bridge and carefully bring heavy equipment over the East River from Brooklyn. The New York Times reported millions of spectators attended the parade. In mid-1942, months after the U.S. formally entered World War II, the city hosted a morale-boosting "New York at War" parade that the Times said was meant to "give a realistic picture of what the American armed forces and their machines of destruction look like." Soldiers stand rigidly at attention in their vehicles which carry 8-inch Howitzers during the Victory Parade of the 82nd Airborne Division on Fith Avenue in New York on Jan. 12, 1946. HARRY HARRIS / AP Thousand of people line the streets to cheer on military units in New York on June 13, 1942. Anonymous / AP The end of World War I was also celebrated by victory parades in New York and D.C. in 1919. 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Yahoo
31 minutes ago
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