Agency photojournalist pushed to ground, lens damaged at LA-area protest

Shutterstock photojournalist Chelsea Lauren was shoved to the ground with a baton by police, damaging her telephoto lens, while documenting anti-deportation protests in downtown Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 8, 2025.

Protests in LA began in early June in response to federal raids of workplaces and areas in and around the city where immigrant day laborers gather, amid the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown. Raids at Home Depots in early August took place seemingly in defiance of a July 11 court order temporarily prohibiting federal agents from using discriminatory profiling.

On Aug. 8, two days after an immigration raid in the parking lot of a Home Depot in LA’s Westlake neighborhood, protesters gathered at the store and marched to the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown. The demonstrators and the journalists covering them encountered a violent response from Los Angeles Police Department officers, violating a court order protecting the press from arrest, assault or other interference.

Lauren told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker she arrived at the Home Depot and followed the march in her car with a couple of other journalists, arriving at the detention center shortly before the protesters.

“There were probably 15 or 20 of them there already, because they basically have a 24-hour camp going across from the MDC,” Lauren said. “The protests met up and, you know, everybody was kind of staying behind the bollards that were the designated ‘do not cross’ point.”

As demonstrators shouted and flashed lights at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outside the building, multiple police cruisers pulled into the middle of the street.

“They basically asked everyone to get away from the cars and onto the sidewalks, and people actually listened,” she said. “We thought, ‘Oh, OK, cool. That de-escalated, we’re good. And then almost immediately after that, the police made a line and just started pushing.”

The officers used their batons to push back the crowd, including members of the press. As officers repeatedly shouted “Back up!” Lauren said she just kept repeating, “I’m trying, I’m trying.”

“One of them decided he didn’t think I was backing up fast enough. And he put his baton into my ribs and knocked me to the ground,” she told the Tracker. “I’m on the ground, seeing all of them with their batons over me and they’re about to hit me, and I’m scooting back on my butt while trying to get up, my cameras are dragging on the ground.”

A fellow journalist, Tina-Desiree Berg, and a protester helped Lauren get up, but Berg was injured in the process. Lauren told the Tracker that, meanwhile, her knee was skinned, her ankle bruised and her telephoto lens damaged when she fell.

Lauren left the protest soon after, alongside Berg, photographer Nick Stern and filmmaker Rocky Romano, who were also injured. They attempted to find an open urgent care center, but they were unsuccessful.

She returned to the protest after dropping off the others, having learned that police had corralled and detained multiple members of the press, alongside the remaining protesters, using a technique called kettling.

The LAPD did not respond to an emailed request for additional comment. In a statement posted to the social platform X, the department’s Central Division wrote that an unlawful assembly was declared “due to the aggressive nature of a few demonstrators.”

“The protest went into the late night hours with people refusing to disperse,” it continued. “Central Division will continue to support 1st Amendment rights of all people. However, if violence or criminal activity occurs, laws will be enforced.”

Lauren disputed the department’s characterization of the protest. “There was no escalation on the protester side that I noticed,” she told the Tracker. “From the minute police pulled up, to the minute a bunch of us were assaulted was only seven minutes. There’s no way they gave a dispersal order first.”

The Los Angeles Press Club filed a motion Aug. 13 to hold the city of Los Angeles in contempt for violating the temporary restraining order in place to protect journalists while they’re covering protests, citing the Aug. 8 assaults and detentions of multiple members of the press.

“Defendants’ actions evince a blatant disregard for the First Amendment and an unwillingness or an inability or both on the part of the City to take steps necessary to ensure compliance with this Court’s Injunction,” the motion read. “What will it take to get the LAPD to respect the constitutional rights of journalists?”