Incident details
- Date of incident
- June 6, 2025
- Location
- Los Angeles, California
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
Department of Homeland Security police line up during an immigration protest in downtown Los Angeles, California, on June 6, 2025. A freelance photojournalist was pepper-sprayed while documenting the event.
A freelance photographer was pepper-sprayed by a federal agent while covering an immigration enforcement protest in downtown Los Angeles on June 6, 2025.
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.
The photographer, who asked not to be named due to concerns about legal trouble when traveling abroad, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was clearly identified as a journalist while covering the protest near the Metropolitan Detention Center.
While photographing demonstrators, a Department of Homeland Security agent pepper-sprayed both him and another photographer.
“I think they were deliberately targeting journalists,” he told the Tracker. “They knew we were press, and they fired their pepper spray.”
In a statement emailed to the Tracker on June 11, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin urged journalists to be cautious while covering what she characterized as “violent riots,” and added that Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem “are committed to restoring law and order.”
On June 7, while covering a protest in Compton, the photographer was struck in the leg and face by impact projectiles fired by the LA County Sheriff’s Department. He sustained a hematoma in one eye and required stitches in his left temple.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
