Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi hit by rubber bullet during Los Angeles protests
Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi, US correspondent for Nine News, was hit by a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) rubber bullet while covering the LA protests over the weekend.
In a video that has surfaced online, Tomasi can be seen reporting outside the Metropolitan Detention Centre in downtown Los Angeles when a rubber bullet struck her as officers began dispersing protesters. Watch the incident that was caught live on air.
'After hours of standing off, this situation has now rapidly deteriorated, the LAPD moving in on horseback, firing rubber bullets at protesters, moving them on through the heart of LA,' she said on air just moments before being hit by the rubber bullet.
Just as she went on covering the protests, Tomasi suddenly cried. The video shows her grabbing her calf as a rubber bullet, used to disperse crowds, hit her.
'You just f****** shot the reporter!' a bystander can be heard shouting just after the hit.
When a bystander asked Lauren Tomasi if she was alright, she responded, 'I'm good.'
Channel Nine issued a statement informing that both Lauren Tomasi and her camera operator were safe.
"Lauren Tomasi was struck by a rubber bullet. Lauren and her camera operator are safe and will continue their essential work covering these events,' the statement said.
The network called the incident 'a stark reminder of the inherent dangers journalists can face while reporting from the frontlines of protests'.
US President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to escalating protests triggered by a recent wave of immigration raids.
The White House announced late Saturday that the troops will remain for 60 days or until Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth decides otherwise.
The protests erupted after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out large-scale operations across Los Angeles, arresting dozens of undocumented immigrants. According to a report by the news agency Reuters, 44 people were reportedly arrested on Friday. Officials have not confirmed if more arrests occurred on Saturday.
California Governor Gavin Newsom criticised Trump's action as 'purposefully inflammatory.' On X, he wrote, 'Trump was deploying the National Guard not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle... Never use violence. Speak out peacefully.' LA mayor Karen Bass also condemned the immigration raids, calling them 'tactics that sow terror.'
Several footage from the protests showed federal agents in military-style gear using force to control the crowd. Witnesses saw protesters being detained, though authorities haven't released official arrest numbers.
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He was in Los Angeles meeting with local law enforcement and officials. The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration's mass deportation efforts. Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the increasingly aggressive protests on Trump's decision to deploy the Guard, calling it a move designed to enflame tensions. They've both urged protesters to remain peaceful. 'What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration," she said in an afternoon press conference. 'This is about another agenda, this isn't about public safety.' But McDonnell, the LAPD chief, said the protests were following a similar pattern for episodes of civil unrest, with things ramping up in the second and third days. He pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out Friday after a series of immigration raids. His department responded as quickly as it could, and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not pre-positioned for protests, he said. Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles, and said on MSNBC that Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called Trump a 'stone cold liar.' The admonishments did not deter the administration. 'It's a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. 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The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops. The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.' He said he had authorized the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard. Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, Sunday that there were 'violent people' in Los Angeles 'and they're not gonna get away with it.' Asked if he planned to send U.S. troops to Los Angeles, Trump replied: 'We're gonna have troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country.' He didn't elaborate. About 500 Marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Los Angeles were in a 'prepared to deploy status' Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Northern Command.
