Photographer struck and injured by tear gas canister at LA protest

Photojournalist Héctor Adolfo Quintanar Pérez was struck with a tear gas canister fired by police while documenting an immigration enforcement protest in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 2025.

It was one of numerous protests 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.

Quintanar, a Mexican stringer working for Zuma Press, said that at the start of the protest, a group of Los Angeles Police Department officers — some on horseback — arrived outside the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles to disperse the crowd.

According to Quintanar, officers pushed media members who were clearly displaying their press badges. About two minutes later, he was hit by a tear gas canister.

“I was walking backward, trying to do my job. The officer simply fired from about three meters away,” Quintanar wrote in an email to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

The canister ricocheted off both of his knees. Quintanar said he couldn’t tell whether he had been targeted intentionally because the officer was wearing sunglasses.

“The pain prevented me from working properly,” he said. “I couldn’t leave because we were blocked and surrounded, so I was forced to stay at the protests for a couple more hours while my wounds continued to bleed and worsen.”

Quintanar said he was returning to Mexico to seek medical treatment for his injuries and was struggling to walk.

“The message it conveys is one of profound disappointment over the criminalization of our work as press officers,” he said. “Everything indicates that freedom of the press doesn’t exist, and they’re proud of it.”

In a statement posted to social platform X, the Los Angeles Police Department said “deployments of less-lethal munitions were necessary to manage the crowds and prevent further harm to people or property.” The department’s professional standards bureau would investigate allegations of excessive force used during the protests, according to the statement.