Incident details
- Date of incident
- April 28, 2024
- Location
- Los Angeles, California
- Case number
- 25STCV08969
- Case status
- Ongoing
- Type of case
- Civil
- Assailant
- Private individual
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
Pro-Palestinian students and activists at a campus encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, on April 28, 2024. Counterprotesters attacked journalist Dolores Quintana that day while she covered the protest.
Journalist Dolores Quintana, reporting on pro-Palestinian protests at the University of California, Los Angeles, on April 28, 2024, was struck in the head by a sign thrown by an individual at a counterprotest.
UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported that protesters had erected the encampment on campus on April 25, 2024, to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war and demand that the UC system divest from companies that invest in weapons manufacturers for the Israeli military.
“Things got pretty volatile, pretty quickly,” Quintana, co-editor of the weekly newspaper, the Santa Monica Mirror, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
According to a lawsuit filed in March 2025 by Quintana and others, a person attending the counterprotest tore down a pro-Palestinian sign and threw it at Quintana, hitting her in the head while nearby UCLA private security guards looked on.
“He threw it right at me,” said Quintana, who told the Tracker she then went up to a security guard and asked him if he would do anything about it. He shooed her away.
The lawsuit also details other incidents Quintana experienced while covering the ongoing protests. On May 1, Quintana was assaulted multiple times while covering a violent clash between individuals at the pro-Palestinian protest and counterprotest at UCLA. She told the Tracker that she was struck in the back, grabbed and sprayed in the face with a chemical irritant at close range.
“As a reporter, as an editor, I don’t feel safe in LA anymore,” she said.
She also had her phone slapped out of her hand and was surrounded and harassed by individuals she identified as counterprotesters, who filmed her, shined lights in her eyes and called her derogatory names. A medical student helped flush irritant from her eyes.
Quintana later shared photos and video of the aftermath on social media, writing of those who attacked her, “They are deliberately targeting us so that there’s no one there to take pictures and get video of the crimes that they are committing.”
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to include comments from Dolores Quintana.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
