Photojournalist shoved, shot with crowd-control munition, camera damaged

Independent photojournalist Josh Pacheco was shoved, targeted with stun grenades and shot with crowd-control munitions by law enforcement while covering demonstrations outside a private detention center in Newark, New Jersey, on May 30, 2026.

Protests outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility began May 22, when many detainees went on a hunger strike. Members of Congress, state and local lawmakers and rights groups have alleged dire conditions at the facility.

Federal officers responded to the protests with chemical irritants, physical force and arrests.

The Department of Homeland Security has denied allegations of detainee mistreatment.

Pacheco told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that they had been covering the protests for several days by May 30 and that day was by far the most brutal, with officers from both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and New Jersey State Police at the scene.

“They were firing directly at press and activists, like, point-blank pepper balls to the stomach for one press person that I documented myself,” they said. “And I was shot in the calf and in the shin.”

The photojournalist added that the targeting also extended to the use of tear gas and stun grenades, which Pacheco said were repeatedly shot or thrown directly at press and their feet.

“The tear gas was just so, so much. I had to have my eyes flushed four times on Saturday,” they told the Tracker.

Pacheco was also repeatedly shoved with a metal barricade by a state police officer, who was using it to push the crowd back or knock them to the ground. The repeated ramming damaged their camera lens, chipping the glass front element and the filter thread, as well as a lens hood.

“The whole point of sending in the police was to minimize aggression and violence,” Pacheco told the Tracker. “And it didn’t minimize anything. It just changed faces and, if anything, amped up even more.”

They emphasized, however, that the extent of the aggression from federal officers was much higher.

“ICE seemed to be so much more deranged, more angry, and there’s less restrictions on what they’re able to do in terms of enacting violence on civilians,” Pacheco said, “whereas riot cops have done this before and there is sort of a playbook that they go by when they are enacting aggression like this.”

The New Jersey State Police Office of Public Information did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

In a statement posted to X early May 31, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport wrote that state and local law enforcement had responded to “aggressive actions” outside Delaney Hall. She also announced that a curfew would be in place around the facility until further notice. It did not address the use of force against members of the press.

In a statement emailed to the Tracker on June 1, DHS said anyone who obstructs law enforcement or disrupts its operations would be prosecuted. It did not address its use of force against members of the press.

“We remind members of the media to exercise caution as they cover these violent riots and remind journalists that covering unlawful activities in the field does come with risks,” the statement read. “Our officers take every reasonable precaution to mitigate those dangers to those exercising protected First Amendment rights.”