Documentarian hit with police baton, equipment damaged at LA protest

Documentary writer, director and producer Rocky Romano was pushed by police and hit with a baton while covering an immigration raid protest 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.

Romano was filming for his production company, Winters Rock Entertainment, when LAPD officers charged a crowd outside the detention center. Officers did not issue a dispersal order before pushing the group of protesters and journalists, Romano told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

“They just started batoning everybody, including the press, shoving us,” he said. “They were just hammering people.”

Romano said he believes he was shoved and struck in the arm and side with a police baton. Romano was carrying a gimbal and a Sony FX3 camera, both of which were damaged when he was knocked to the ground and other journalists fell on top of him.

“My knees were bloody, my elbows were bloody, my hand was bloody,” he said. “My back and my hip were just killing me.”

Despite wearing visible press credentials, a helmet labeled “Press” and carrying professional gear, Romano said the officers did not discriminate. The police line kept advancing, even as one journalist held up a press badge and shouted he was press.

“It was such a remarkable show of violence towards the press,” Romano said. “It definitely adds another layer of psychological fear.”

The LAPD did not respond to a Tracker request for comment about the detained journalists. 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.”

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 of Romano and others, as well as the detention 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?”