Photojournalist pepper-sprayed by DHS, struck with pepper balls at LA protest

Freelance photojournalist Benjamin Hanson was pepper-sprayed in the face by a Department of Homeland Security officer while documenting a protest outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 1, 2025.

Hanson, who was photographing for Middle East Images and filming for Royol News, was also struck with pepper balls later in the demonstration.

It was one of many protests that 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 LA 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. Trump’s deployment of federal troops to LA was ruled illegal by a federal judge Sept. 2.

Hanson told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was photographing as protesters marched toward the detention center, where immigrants were being held. Federal agents had erected a fence around the facility, and at times demonstrators approached the gate and shook it.

Hanson said he was standing with several other journalists when a DHS officer suddenly opened the fence and sprayed them.

“It got me right in the forehead,” said Hanson, who was wearing goggles at the time. When he removed them to wipe the spray away, it seeped into his eyes and left him incapacitated for approximately 30 minutes.

In a video reviewed by the Tracker, federal agents can be seen opening the fence and indiscriminately pepper-spraying the crowd.

“When I saw the photo that a buddy of mine took, I said, ‘Wow, they did that on purpose,’” he said. “It was directly at my face.”

A fellow photographer also stopped working temporarily to help guide Hanson to an area where medics were flushing pepper spray from people’s eyes.

Later that day, Hanson said he was photographing a Border Patrol arrest when a DHS officer fired pepper balls, striking him in the leg and hitting several nearby protesters. In a video reviewed by the Tracker, agents can be heard yelling at people to get back before firing the projectiles.

“I don’t think it was fair,” Hanson said, referencing the agents firing at him for documenting the arrest from a safe distance.

In a statement emailed to the Tracker at the start of the LA protests in June, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin urged journalists to be cautious while covering what she characterized as “violent riots,” and added that President Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem “are committed to restoring law and order.”

While covering the protests earlier in the summer, Hanson was shoved by a California Highway Patrol officer and had his cellphone knocked out of his hand by a police officer.