Incident details
- Date of incident
- September 1, 2025
- Location
- Los Angeles, California
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
Federal officers stand behind a gate and one pepper-sprays the crowd, at right, during a protest on Sept. 1, 2025. Photojournalist Jake Crandall told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was hit with a projectile while covering the demonstration.
Student photojournalist Jake Crandall was pelted with impact projectiles at an immigration enforcement protest in Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 1, 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 on Sept. 2.
Crandall, on assignment for Santa Monica College’s The Corsair, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was photographing protesters outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, where immigrants were being detained.
The demonstrators were gathered in front of a gate outside the facility when Department of Homeland Security officers started firing crowd-control munitions through the holes of the gate.
Crandall said he was wearing his press badge and standing at least 10 feet away from protesters when he was hit by pepper balls. He identified the projectiles from the residue left on his bulletproof vest.
“It was clear that DHS was shooting at me and not just the protesters," he told the Tracker.
In a statement emailed to the Tracker at the start of the LA protests in June, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin urged journalists to be cautious while covering what she characterized as “violent riots,” and added that President Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem “are committed to restoring law and order.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
