LA Times reporter detained in kettle at anti-deportation protest

Rebecca Ellis, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, was detained in a kettle by police while documenting an anti-deportation protest in Los Angeles, California, on June 9, 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.

Ellis told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she and her colleague, photojournalist Jason Armond, had been documenting protests throughout the night of June 9. The protests were centered around the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown LA’s Little Tokyo neighborhood.

After the Los Angeles Police Department declared the protests an unlawful assembly, Ellis said she and Armond were following the remaining demonstrators when officers began herding the crowd.

“They’d been pushing protesters from downtown into Little Tokyo and then through the streets,” Ellis said. “Then at one point, we saw that they were also coming from behind and we were in a kettle.”

Ellis told the Tracker that many journalists were caught in the kettle alongside a few dozen protesters. She was one of the first journalists escorted out, but noted that it wasn’t clear what was happening to them.

“I was confused, and Jason, who was there and was my photographer, was confused,” Ellis said. “I would say there was one minute of concern and fear, but then it was pretty clear that we were going to be let out.

“They were having everyone come one by one to detain them and cite them for failure to disperse. They would include press and would have you put your hands behind your back. They’d hold your hands back, walk you over to a different location and then get your name and walk you away from the kettle, about a block down, and then just had us leave.”

She estimated that she was held in the kettle for 20 to 25 minutes before she was escorted out. Armond was also released without charges.

When reached for comment, the LAPD directed the Tracker to the department’s social media accounts. But in a June 10 news release posted on social platform X about the previous evening’s arrests, the LAPD did not address the detainments and removal of journalists caught in the kettle.