Incident details
- Date of incident
- June 11, 2025
- Location
- Los Angeles, California
- Targets
- Spencer Platt (Getty Images)
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Unknown
Assault
Los Angeles Police Department officers on horseback during an immigration protest in downtown LA on June 11, 2025. Getty Images photographer Spencer Platt was struck with a police baton by a mounted officer while documenting the demonstration.
Spencer Platt, a photojournalist with Getty Images, was struck by a mounted officer wielding a baton while covering an anti-deportation protest in Los Angeles, California, on June 11, 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.
On June 11, Platt, who was wearing a helmet and clearly identified as press, said mounted officers with the LA Police Department indiscriminately struck protesters and journalists with their police batons and were particularly forceful.
“In general, I found the LAPD extremely aggressive and not very discriminating in how they come after people,” he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “They just came swinging.”
Platt said while he was hit with the baton, he wasn’t sure if he was targeted by police or not, as he frequently gets close to his subjects when shooting events as they unfold.
“It is completely possible that the protester was the intended target,” he told the Tracker. “I shoot with a wide lens, and I have to get really close. So sometimes, you get whacked. It’s just part of the job.”
When reached for comment, the LAPD directed the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker to the department’s social media accounts. In a June 12 statement posted to X, the department acknowledged that LAPD officers used numerous “less-lethal munitions” when responding to the protests, but did not address the use of force against identifiable press.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
