Journalist struck with crowd-control munition, press credential damaged

Freelance journalist Sean Beckner-Carmitchel was shot by federal officers with pepper balls, damaging his press credential, while documenting anti-deportation protests in Los Angeles, California, on June 8, 2025.

The protests began June 6 in response to federal raids in and around LA of workplaces and areas where immigrant day laborers gathered, amid the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown. After demonstrators clashed with local 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.

Beckner-Carmitchel told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was on assignment for the Los Angeles Public Press, covering what he said was a peaceful march from the neighborhood of Boyle Heights to the Metropolitan Detention Center.

When they arrived at the detention center, Beckner-Carmitchel said they found another crowd already there, and it was around that time that National Guardsmen and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began deploying crowd-control munitions “pretty indiscriminately.”

“I saw a lot of people with ‘Press’ patches coughing from tear gas, possibly pepper spray as well; I saw them deploy that a little bit,” he said.

Beckner-Carmitchel told the Tracker he was standing alongside mostly journalists and was at least 30 feet away from the action when he was shot with a crowd-control munition.

“While I was off to the side, I literally got hit in the press pass with a pepper ball,” he said.

The press credential had “gone through it” over the weeks of protests and was more or less illegible, with scorch marks on it and a crack in the middle, he added. After it was struck with the pepper ball, Beckner-Carmitchel said he had to stop using it entirely.

He said he felt the shot was very deliberate. “You do aim those things, you have a sight on that, you know?” he told the Tracker.

Beckner-Carmitchel was shot with other crowd-control munitions and exposed to chemical irritants multiple times while covering protests the two previous days, and was shoved to the ground by police in the city of Whittier a few days later.

In a statement emailed to the Tracker, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin urged journalists to be cautious while covering what she characterized as “violent riots,” and added, “President Trump and Secretary Noem are committed to restoring law and order in Los Angeles.”