Journalists were targeted, repeatedly attacked for documenting LA protests

At least 11 journalists were assaulted, pepper-sprayed and harassed, and their equipment stolen or damaged by those at the protests on June 23, 2024. The day marks the highest number of attacks on the press by private individuals since 16 journalists were assaulted amid the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.

The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in LA’s heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Independent videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that “tensions were incredibly high from the jump.”

Private security hired by the congregation and Los Angeles police officers worked to establish a perimeter around the synagogue’s entrance, ultimately pushing both the protesters and counterprotesters onto West Pico Boulevard. What followed were tit-for-tat scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray.

Hostility toward the press, especially those documenting the violence, was immediate. Photojournalist David Swanson, who was on assignment that day for Agence France-Presse, said that attendees repeatedly told him not to photograph them or show their faces.

“It just became personal — I don’t know who exactly they thought they were preventing coverage from,” Swanson said, noting that there were full-time, freelance and independent journalists present. “The gist of it is that in the current climate, we’re getting attacked more by protesters.”

Swanson said he was wearing press credentials issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but that he doesn’t always wear them out of concern that someone will rip them off or choke him with them.

Photojournalist Nick Stern told the Tracker that he too was wearing press credentials on a lanyard while documenting that day and was clearly identifiable as press, but that he regretted it. “I think it would have been safer if I hadn’t,” he told the Tracker.

Of the 11 journalists targeted, most experienced multiple aggressions and were targeted within blocks of the synagogue.

Freelance photojournalist Shay Horse told the Tracker that people were openly threatening and hostile to journalists, more so even than the insurrectionists he interacted with while covering the Jan. 6 riots.

“If you had a camera and were taking pictures, somebody was going to get in your face about it,” Horse told the Tracker. “People would get in my face to block my shot, flipping me off and telling me to go fuck myself.”

Investigative journalist Kate Burns described the attacks as having “no restraint, no rationale,” while independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg noted that the pure rage emanating from the individuals was like nothing she’d seen.

“These kids are so radicalized, I don’t have a better word for it,” Berg said.

The vast majority of the aggressions against members of the press were at the hands of men the journalists described as pro-Israeli counterprotesters. However, individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating.

Los Angeles Police Department officers, however, did little to mitigate the attacks, multiple journalists told the Tracker. A photojournalist who asked to remain anonymous, citing fears of harassment, said the inaction of the police was jarring.

“You would think that no matter how corrupt or inept or apathetic a cop might be, if they see a fight in front of them, or someone getting beat up by a swarm of people, they would stop it. And they didn’t. They didn’t do shit,” the photojournalist said. “That was the really devastating thing about that. Not only are we not safe, we’re not safe and no one’s going to do anything about it.”

The photojournalist said he hasn’t covered a protest since.

While some journalists told the Tracker that they are reevaluating how to cover protests safely, others are taking a more drastic approach. Burns said that her editor has taken her off on-the-ground reporting until her safety can be assured.

“To be perfectly honest, I’m rethinking my life choices,” Burns said. “We thought we were going to get killed.”

And Burns wasn’t the only one with that fear. Horse told the Tracker that the protests and violence outside Adas Torah “scared the hell out of everyone.”

With political violence on the rise in the U.S. — including with the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate — and a contentious election on the horizon, the temperature of protests can quickly spike.

“I think we’ve got to a point now where a journalist will get significantly injured or even possibly killed at a protest event,” Stern told the Tracker.

But given the importance of continued media coverage of such demonstrations and the need for journalists to work without fear, Stern added: “This needs to stop. As journalists, we need to do what we’re out there doing.”