Munition strikes photojournalist at LA protest, shrapnel surgically removed

Independent photojournalist Nick Stern required surgery after he was struck in the leg with a crowd-control munition while documenting protests in the California cities of Compton and Paramount on June 7, 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 Los Angeles law enforcement officers and federal agents, President Donald Trump called in the California National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

Demonstrations the following day were centered around a Home Depot in Paramount, a predominantly Latino suburb of Los Angeles, after Border Patrol agents were spotted nearby, the Los Angeles Times reported. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies formed a police line blocking the bridge that led to the Home Depot and connected Paramount to the adjacent city of Compton.

Stern told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he and his colleague Tina-Desiree Berg arrived to document the mounting protest at around 3 p.m., and found a standoff along the skirmish line.

“Things went backward and forward,” Stern said. “The Sheriff’s Department firing projectiles, throwing these kinds of stun grenades, firing pepper pellets at people. People responding by throwing things like bottles of water and small bits of concrete.”

He said it continued until night fell, at which point the deputies moved their line back. Meanwhile, some demonstrators had assembled a makeshift barricade to protect themselves from the crowd-control munitions.

Shortly before 9 p.m., Stern said, he was documenting protesters holding Mexican flags illuminated by the shining headlights of the deputies’ vehicles in the distance when he felt a sudden, immense pain.

“I felt this incredible, painful impact into my right side. I immediately put my hand down there and in the dark I saw this kind of solid object that appeared to be part of my leg,” Stern told the Tracker. “I hobbled away shouting, ‘I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!’”

He said a group of protesters carried him to safety and a medic worked to stabilize him.

“A medic came over, cut my pants off with some scissors, put a pad onto the wound — which was about a two-inch diameter, circular hole in my leg — and then tightly wrapped a bandage around it,” Stern said. “I was sitting on the pavement and I actually passed out, and the medics brought me back round, which is fucking terrifying, if I’m honest.”

Berg was then able to transport Stern to the emergency room with him lying in the back seat while his wound continued to gush blood. At the hospital, Stern said, the doctors thoroughly examined him.

“They looked over my entire body — from the soles of my feet to the top of my head and under my arms — to see if they could find an exit wound for a bullet, because they figured it may well have been a live round,” he said.

In a post on the social platform Bluesky, Berg later confirmed that doctors surgically removed what appears to be a portion of a stun grenade that was embedded deep in Stern’s leg.

Stern, who has documented protests in Los Angeles for at least five years, said that what he witnessed at these demonstrations was different.

“I was covering the George Floyd protests in 2020, and law enforcement in Los Angeles was heavily criticized for their use of these devices because they weren’t trained on them,” he said. “But to see what they were doing out on the streets the past few days, last week is absolutely horrific. Effectively — if what we assume is correct, about this device that hit me — they’re firing explosive munitions toward people.”

In a statement emailed to the Tracker June 10, the Sheriff’s Department said it was still reviewing footage of Stern’s assault and that “it is not clear at this time whether our department was involved in this incident.”

“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 added. “We remain open to working with all media organizations to improve communication, transparency, and safety for all parties during public safety operations.”

Stern said that while he has been released from the hospital, he has a long road to recovery — including extensive physical therapy — ahead of him.

After police shot Stern with multiple munitions and struck him with batons amid the 2020 protests, the photojournalist filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department and reached a $150,000 settlement in 2024. He told the Tracker he thinks he has no choice but to pursue that same recourse.

“This whole kind of lawsuit culture in the U.S. is quite alien for me, as a British person, and is one that I don’t necessarily, deep down, agree with, but there seems to be no other accountability,” Stern said. “I think, as a member of the public, as a citizen, as a journalist, whatever: It has to be a multipronged approach. It has to be done by official complaints, it has to be done by lobbying politicians, it has to be done by lawsuits.

“The system needs to change by whatever means we can change it.”