Journalist nearly trampled, shot with munition at LA immigration protest

Status Coup journalist Tina-Desiree Berg was shot with a crowd-control munition by law enforcement and nearly trampled by a mounted officer while reporting on anti-deportation protests in Los Angeles, California, on June 11, 2025.

The protests began June 6 in response to federal raids in and around Los Angeles of workplaces and areas where immigrant day laborers gathered, amid the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown. After demonstrators clashed with LA law enforcement officers and federal agents, President Donald Trump called in the California National Guard and then the U.S. Marines over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass.

Berg told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she and a photojournalist were covering the demonstrations together, livestreaming their reporting to YouTube starting at approximately 5:30 p.m. She said that she was wearing her LA Press Club credential and was clearly identifiable as a journalist.

A little over an hour into the livestream, Los Angeles Police Department officers are seen allowing horse-mounted officers to pass through and toward the crowd. “All right, they’ve now brought out the cavalry again, which is never a good sign,” Berg says. “These horses get very spooked when they start hearing munitions.”

As the mounted officers advance, Berg tells her cameraman to step back further from the street. A minute later, she is describing how officers have begun firing crowd-control munitions when an officer walking nearby spots her and starts yelling at her that police had told her to leave the area.

Berg can be heard shouting, “Hey, no! Stop!” before the audio suddenly cuts out and she is seen running down the sidewalk, closely pursued by a mounted officer. A few minutes later, she tells the photojournalist with her, “I almost got trampled by horses.”

Around half an hour later, at approximately 7:30 p.m. — shortly before a curfew was to go into effect — Berg told the Tracker she observed an individual shouting at a line of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

Moments later, an officer fired a pepper ball at the man at point-blank range. The individual then throws a can at the deputy who shot him and is in turn fired upon multiple additional times. Moments later, deputies turned their attention toward a gaggle of journalists nearby.

“They just started shooting less-lethals and I got hit,” Berg told the Tracker. In the livestream of that moment, Berg can be heard saying, “Whoa, stop! Jesus, you just hit me!”

She told the Tracker, “I don’t think they were aiming at me. I think they just shoot these things without care. I mean, they just really never stop firing this shit, it’s awful.”

Berg added that she was wearing Kevlar leggings under her pants, so she was only bruised when the munition struck her leg. “These Kevlar leggings are a godsend. If I did not have those on, I would have had a pretty severe injury, probably,” she said.

When reached for comment, the LAPD directed the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker to the department’s social media accounts. In a June 12 statement posted to X, the department acknowledged that LAPD officers used numerous “less-lethal rounds” when responding to the protests, but did not address the use of munitions against identifiable press or the impact of mounted officers.

In a statement emailed to the Tracker on June 10, the Sheriff’s Department said it prioritizes maintaining access for credentialed media, “especially during emergencies and critical incidents.”

“The LASD does not condone any actions that intentionally target members of the press, and we continuously train our personnel to distinguish and respect the rights of clearly identified journalists in the field,” a public information officer wrote. “We remain open to working with all media organizations to improve communication, transparency, and safety for all parties during public safety operations.”

The Los Angeles Press Club, Status Coup and news cooperative The Southlander filed a lawsuit June 18 seeking an injunction to prevent law enforcement from using excessive force against journalists or otherwise hampering their ability to cover protests. Berg’s injury was cited in the complaint, which names Los Angeles County and Sheriff Robert Luna as defendants.

The suit alleges that deputies’ actions violated the First and Fourteenth amendments, the state constitution and a 2021 addition to the state penal code that established protections for press at protests — revealing “a brazen refusal to abide by the Constitution and state law” and “the need for judicial intervention to prevent future abuses.”