John D’Anna
CalMatters
The specter of law enforcement firing “less-lethal” rounds into crowds of protesters and striking journalists on the streets of Los Angeles is a haunting echo of the death of journalist Ruben Salazar while covering a protest more than 50 years ago.
In four days of protests over ICE immigration arrests in the Los Angeles Area, nearly a dozen journalists, including CalMatters investigative reporter Sergio Olmos, were struck by projectiles fired by law-enforcement officers, according to data compiled by Adam Rose, chair of the press rights committee of the Los Angeles Press Club.
Most sustained minor bruises, but one, British journalist Nick Stern, was hit in the leg with a projectile, apparently fired by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy, while covering Friday night’s disturbance in the community of Paramount.
The impact left a 2-inch hole in his leg and required emergency surgery to remove a 40mm projectile, according to media reports.
“It hurt so much that I thought they might be firing live rounds,” he told The Guardian. “I’ve been with non-lethal rounds before. They hurt like hell but generally don’t break the skin. But the blood made me think it was a live round.”
Another journalist, Lauren Tomasi of News9 Australia, was struck by a rubber bullet fired by a Los Angeles Police Department officer while she was broadcasting live during Sunday’s protest outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Downtown Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department told CalMatters in a statement that the department is reviewing footage of Stern’s injury and “it is not clear at this time whether our department was involved.”
The statement said the department is committed to ensuring members of the media “can perform their duties safely while covering events, including protests, civil disobedience and public gatherings.”
The statement added that the Tomasi incident “involved another law enforcement agency and not the Sheriff’s Department.”
A video posted on X by News9 Australia shows a uniformed LAPD officer taking aim and firing in the direction of Tomasi and her crew.
When asked for comment, an LAPD spokesperson directed CalMatters to a news release posted on the agency’s X account. It states that police fired more than 600 rounds of “less-than lethal munitions” Saturday and Sunday while arresting 29 people.
The release states that the department will continue to review body-worn footage from the incidents, but makes no mention of the Tomasi case or other journalists who were struck.
News9 reported that LAPD has launched a formal investigation into the Tomasi incident.
A subsequent release by the LAPD states that its Professional Standards Bureau “will be investigating allegations of excessive force” but does not mention Tomasi or other media.
U.S correspondent Lauren Tomasi of 9News in Australia is hit by a projectile fired by LAPD during a live broadcast in downtown Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. Photo Credit: Screenshot via 9News
A history of problems
The hazards journalists face covering the news are not new. Throughout the years, dozens of journalists have been injured by police while covering disturbances in and around Los Angeles.
Rose, the LA Press Club’s journalists rights advocate, said he started compiling data on incidents after the violence during the 2020 LA George Floyd protests to try to determine whether there has been a pattern involving police encounters in which journalists are injured.
He said he believes a pattern does exist.
“There has been a long history of problematic dynamics between police and the press in Los Angeles” he said, especially during incidents of unrest in which police “appear to clearly target journalists.”
He cited the 2007 “Mayday Melee” in which LAPD officers tried to clear protesters at an immigration rally in MacArthur Park. More than 40 people were injured, including nine journalists, and the city paid out $13 million to settle excessive force claims.
Six years earlier LAPD agreed to pay $60,000 to settle a case involving seven reporters who were injured by police covering disturbances surrounding the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
“The (LAPD) culture is really concerning,” Rose said. “Police and the press are both a type of first responder and there should be a level of professionalism and respect. When you culturally target journalists, the rights of the press are chilled and the ability of the public to be informed is harmed.”
Rose noted that California Penal Code Section 13652 was amended in 2021 to require that officers “minimize the possible incidental impact of their use of kinetic energy projectiles and chemical agents on bystanders, medical personnel, journalists, or other unintended targets.”
Olmos, the CalMatters journalist who was struck, reported on X that he saw officers aiming less-lethal munitions at close range, “including at eye level.”
When asked for a response, an LAPD spokesman directed CalMatters to submit questions in writing via email but not to expect an immediate reply.
Rose said it is somewhat difficult to draw a straight line between more recent episodes and the death of Salzar, but there are enough similarities that after 55 years, his case still rings as a cautionary tale.
“He was killed by a tear-gas canister fired through an open door, which indicates a sort of recklessness, and that recklessness certainly continues,” he said.
Rose noted that on Friday, freelance journalist Sean Becker-Carmitchel was struck in the head by a tear-gas round and that “had it been two inches lower, he would have lost an eye.”
Rubén Salazar era columnista de Los Angeles Times y director de noticias de una radio en español. El 29 de agosto de 1970, mientras cubría una marcha de latinos contra la guerra de Vietnam en el Este de Los Ángeles, fue asesinado por un agente que disparó un proyectil de gas lacrimógeno de 25 centímetros a través de la puerta con cortinas de un bar donde estaba sentado para escapar de la turbulencia exterior. La muerte de Salazar fue finalmente declarada accidental. Photo Credit: UCLA Library Special Collections / Los Angeles Times CC BY 4.0
‘The loss of a hero’
Salazar was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times as well as the news director of a Spanish-language radio station.
On Aug. 29, 1970, he was covering a march in East Los Angeles by Latinos against the Vietnam War. As the protest grew more heated, sheriff’s deputies tried to disperse the crowds with tear gas.
Salazar ducked into a bar called The Silver Dollar. A short time later, a deputy fired a 10-inch tear gas projectile through the curtained door of the establishment, striking Salazar in the head and killing him. The death was ultimately ruled accidental.
Retired journalist Frank Sotomayor joined the Times in 1970, shortly after Salazar’s death. He had become an admirer of Salazar’s after relatives began sending him copies of his columns while he was stationed in Tokyo with the Army.
Those columns led him to apply at the Times.
“The day I got out of the Army was the day he was killed,” Sotomayor told CalMatters.
“He was one of the few Latinos in journalism at the time…for the people who knew him, they were just stunned…that anything like this would happen.”
“To me, it was the loss of a hero that I’d always wanted to meet and never had the opportunity.”
Sotomayor, who helped lead a Times project on the Latino community and culture that won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for public service and later worked on a 20th anniversary retrospective about Salazar’s death, noted that there are still questions surrounding the case.
“There’s still people who believe Ruben was killed on purpose,” he said. “I’ve never made my mind up whether it was on purpose or an accident, as the Sheriff’s Office called it. Why someone would fire a projectile of that type into a business … it seems like it’s beyond a coincidence.”
Sotomayor noted that the type of tear-gas canister that struck Salazar would not fit the description of a non-lethal projectile today.
But that doesn’t discount the danger journalists face in trying to cover their communities.
Last year was the deadliest year for journalists on record, with at least 124 killed in the line of duty, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Most died while covering conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and other parts of the world.
