Journalist subpoenaed by reporters arrested at 2021 California protest

Los Angeles Times reporter James Queally was subpoenaed on May 9, 2025, by two Knock LA journalists for testimony at the trial of their civil case against the city of Los Angeles, California, and multiple police officers.

Queally and the two reporters were among the nearly 20 journalists detained while documenting protests near LA’s Echo Park Lake on March 25, 2021, after police surrounded and arrested everyone using a tactic called “kettling.”

Queally was released after approximately 30 minutes, with help from attorneys and a managing editor for the Times. Other journalists, including the two reporters for nonprofit community journalism outlet Knock LA, were charged with failure to disperse. The charges were quickly dropped.

The Knock LA reporters, Jonathan Peltz and Kate Gallagher, then filed a lawsuit against the city, as well as then-Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore and 10 police officers. The reporters alleged that their arrests violated both their constitutional rights and California’s Tom Bane Civil Rights Act, which protects journalists.

“This is a civil rights action challenging the Los Angeles Police Department’s longstanding policy, custom and practice of obstructing, targeting, and retaliating against members of the press for exercising their First Amendment rights to gather news regarding police officer activity in public places,” the lawsuit states.

Three weeks before the case was set to go to trial on May 27, attorneys for Peltz and Gallagher subpoenaed Queally, ordering him to appear as a witness and to testify about “the protest, his coverage of it, and being detained, but ultimately released when the officers identified him as a journalist.”

In a motion to quash the subpoena filed May 23, attorneys representing Queally argued that, in a rush to vindicate their own interests, the Knock LA journalists had infringed on the rights of a fellow reporter.

“The free flow of information to the public is jeopardized when litigants use the coercive power of the Court to force journalists to testify in support of parties’ private aims, which undermines reporters’ credibility and hampers their ability to do their job,” the motion said.

Dan Laidman, one of the attorneys representing Queally, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the decision to challenge the subpoena doesn’t reflect any position on the merits of the case.

“James Queally and the Los Angeles Times have demonstrated histories of supporting press freedom and fellow journalists,” Laidman wrote, but added, “Forcing reporters to testify in court about matters that they cover compromises their ability to gather the news, and under the First Amendment it’s only allowed as a last resort in exceptional circumstances.”

A hearing on the motion is scheduled for June 26, and the trial date has been moved to Aug. 5.