Incident details
- Date of incident
- August 8, 2025
- Location
- Los Angeles, California
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
- Equipment damaged
- Actor
- Unknown
Equipment Damage
A video still captures the moment before a baton-wielding police officer knocks photographer Benjamin Hanson’s cellphone out of his hand while he was documenting a protest in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 8, 2025.
Freelance photojournalist Benjamin Hanson had his phone knocked from his hand by a police officer wielding a baton and was then pushed, damaging his camera lens, while covering an immigration enforcement protest in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 8, 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. Trump’s deployment of federal troops to LA was ruled illegal by a federal judge Sept. 2.
The demonstration near the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center — where immigrants were being held — unfolded as Los Angeles Police Department officers pushed protesters away from the area, Hanson told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. He said he was on assignment for Middle East Images as a photographer and for Royol News as a videographer at the time.
Hanson, who was filming the interaction with his phone and carrying two cameras, said he was wearing three press badges when a police officer deliberately knocked the phone out of his hand. In the video reviewed by the Tracker, officers are yelling at the crowd to move as one with a baton smacks Hanson’s phone to the ground.
“You can clearly see I’m a member of the press,” Hanson said.
When he bent down to retrieve his phone, he was then pushed — either by an officer or a protester caught in the police effort to push the crowd back. When he fell, he landed on his camera, denting his camera lens.
Though the lens is still usable, Hanson said he can no longer attach filters to it.
On other days while covering the protests, Hanson was shoved by a California Highway Patrol officer and pepper-sprayed by a Department of Homeland Security officer.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
