Student journalist kettled, threatened with arrest at LA protest

Student journalist Delfino Camacho was caught in a police kettle with other media and threatened with arrest while documenting a protest in Los Angeles on March 28, 2026.

The protest followed a “No Kings” demonstration held earlier in the day in LA, one of thousands across the U.S. that organizers said drew more than 8 million people against Trump administration policies.

After the main march, people gathered outside downtown LA’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where immigrants are held, and the Roybal Federal Building, locations where many demonstrations have centered since sweeping immigration enforcement began in the city in June 2025.

Camacho was taking pictures and reporting for California State University’s Long Beach Current, as well as the university’s bilingual publication ENYE. Outside the detention center, Department of Homeland Security officers deployed tear gas, which Camacho said put him out of commission for a few minutes.

Later, the LA Police Department ordered a dispersal and began making arrests. Officers formed a kettle, a tactic used to surround and control a crowd, and instructed credentialed press to leave the kettle and continue documenting from the sidewalk.

At first, Camacho and other journalists stayed in the kettle to document the arrests, asserting their rights under California law, which allows members of the press to cover protests and exempts them from dispersal orders. It also protects them from arrest or interference by police while doing so. A federal preliminary injunction against the city is in place to uphold those protections.

Police then began violently pushing backward those members of the press who didn’t have identification, Camacho said. After about 30 minutes, he approached an officer, showed him his identification and asked if he could leave.

“They said, ‘No, we gave you an opportunity, you can’t leave now,’” Camacho recalled. “I had just accepted that I was going to get arrested.”

An officer can be heard saying that they would arrest the media in a video that reporter Lexis-Olivier Ray posted to Bluesky.

Camacho and other journalists were eventually allowed to leave after police negotiated the exit of the media with Adam Rose, press rights chair of the LA Press Club. Rose is also deputy director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project.

Camacho, one of the last journalists to be released, said he was then instructed to leave the area and was unable to continue documenting the arrests of protesters.

In a written statement shared April 2, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said that police were responding to acts of violence and vandalism and eventually issued a dispersal order. Anyone identifying as a “duly authorized” member of the media was contacted, verified and separated from those arrested for failure to disperse, according to the statement. McDonnell added that any use of force or allegations of mistreatment involving media members would be investigated and addressed.

“The LAPD recognizes the media’s right to cover events and makes reasonable efforts to accommodate, with those efforts consistent with our primary duty to maintain public safety and order,” the statement said.