Journalist pushed, struck with police baton at LA immigration protest

Independent journalist Sean Beckner-Carmitchel was shoved by police and battered with a baton while documenting a protest against immigration raids in Los Angeles, California, on April 11, 2026.

The protest, which included a few dozen participants, gathered at the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center, where immigrants are being held and where numerous demonstrations have taken place since the start of intensified immigration enforcement in the city in June 2025.

Beckner-Carmitchel told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was covering the protest outside the detention center when an LA Police Department helicopter called for the crowd below to disperse. Shortly after, officers arrived at the scene and began pushing protesters and members of the press down the street, away from the detention center.

Beckner-Carmitchel was shoved at least three times in the back, shoulders and chest, and hit with a police baton at least twice in the arm. One officer aimed his projectile launcher at him.

“So many of my shots were out of focus because you need a half a second to focus,” he said. “And if you’re constantly being shoved, that’s extremely difficult.”

In a video Beckner-Carmitchel posted to Bluesky, officers positioned themselves in front of the media and aggressively advanced on them, using their batons and yelling for them to back up and leave the area. One journalist was kicked.

“You have been advised to leave, all the members of press. You are subject to arrest — all of you. Now,” an officer told them, adding, “You cannot get in the way of arrests.”

“We’re not,” one journalist said.

“You’re coming over here when we’re making arrests,” the officer replied.

California law allows members of the press to cover protests and exempts them from dispersal orders. It also protects them from arrest or interference by police while doing so. A federal preliminary injunction against the city is in place to uphold those protections.

While the statute states press may access closed areas during emergencies, it does not extend that access to designated crime scenes or secured perimeters established by law enforcement.

In one video posted by journalist Mel Buer, an officer using a megaphone told the media they were subject to arrest, and the area had been declared an emergency operation.

“You can’t just declare an entire street your base of operations,” Beckner-Carmitchel told the Tracker. “They’re making it so they don’t have to accommodate journalists.”

Beckner-Carmitchel, who two weeks earlier had been caught in a police kettle and threatened with arrest, said officers were pushing and using their batons against members of the media who were on the sidewalk, where police had directed them.

“We have a job to do,” Beckner-Carmitchel said. “If you don’t want us to interfere, then don’t shove us in the place where you put us.”

A Tracker request for comment from the LAPD was referred to its Internal Affairs Division, which did not immediately respond. But in a series of posts on X, the department wrote that it had declared an unlawful assembly due to “acts of criminal behavior by multiple agitators.”

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement after a March 28 “No Kings” rally weeks earlier — which resulted in at least 11 press freedom violations — that any use of force or allegations of mistreatment involving media members would be investigated and addressed.

“The LAPD recognizes the media’s right to cover events and makes reasonable efforts to accommodate, with those efforts consistent with our primary duty to maintain public safety and order,” the statement said.