Videographer shot with crowd-control munitions by federal agents in Portland

Independent videojournalist Aaron Smith was struck by multiple crowd-control munitions while documenting anti-deportation protests outside a federal immigration building in Portland, Oregon, on Sept. 1, 2025.

Protests began in early June, in response to the implementation of mass deportation policies under President Donald Trump’s second administration, centered around an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland’s South Waterfront neighborhood.

In a declaration filed in connection with a class-action lawsuit against Trump and his Homeland Security secretary, Smith wrote that he had been gathering footage of the demonstrations for an independent documentary, and was clearly present in a journalistic capacity.

He arrived that afternoon wearing a vest labeled with “MEDIA” in large letters on the front and back. Smith wrote that 50-70 demonstrators had gathered outside the ICE facility, amassing around a fake guillotine and dancing in a cha-cha line around it.

Smith said he was filming from the public sidewalk outside the building when agents rushed out to clear the protesters away. Suddenly, he wrote, he was shot on the inner thigh with an impact munition.

“It felt like a jackhammer had hit my leg,” Smith wrote. “I believe the munition was one of the large rubber bullets that they shoot—I know it was a large munition because of the feeling when it hit me.”

He added that, as of January 2026, the bruise the impact left on his leg was still visible.

Smith later found that he had been shot in the back as well, given the residue left on his vest.

“At the time federal agents shot me, I was not doing anything violent or threatening; I was just trying to do my job as a videographer,” he wrote. “In thinking about my experiences at these protests at the ICE building, I became fearful as it fully sank in just how dangerous and even life-threatening the federal agents have made documenting these protests.”

Smith’s declaration — which also detailed how he was shot with multiple projectiles amid protests on Aug. 16, 2025 — was part of a class-action lawsuit filed in November by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon on behalf of freelance journalists Mason Lake and Hugo Rios, as well as three protesters.

The suit alleges indiscriminate, retaliatory violence by Department of Homeland Security agents at protests at the ICE facility in Portland.

“Despite the overwhelmingly peaceful activity, the Trump Administration has falsely characterized the building as ‘under siege’ and has authorized ‘full force’ in response,” the ACLU said in its summary of the case. “The lawsuit challenges these blatant attempts to retaliate against protesters and journalists and interfere with fundamental rights enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

The federal district court in Oregon granted initial class certification in the suit in March 2026.

DHS did not respond to an emailed request from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.