Journalists sue LAPD, sheriff
Photographers say they were assaulted by law enforcement during protests.
Two photojournalists alleged this week in separate federal lawsuits that they were harassed and physically assaulted by law enforcement officers during protests last year in the Los Angeles area.
The lawsuits came amid heightened tensions between local police and the media after a year in which reporters and photographers have repeatedly alleged abuses by officers — including verbal harassment, physical assaults and baseless detentions and arrests — as they’ve sought to cover street demonstrations.
Nicholas Stern, a freelance news photographer, claimed in his suit that he was repeatedly struck with a baton and shot twice with projectiles by Los Angeles police officers during mass protests against police brutality on May 30, 2020, in the Fairfax district.
Stern claimed that one shot hit his thigh as he was showing his media credentials to get onto a sidewalk and behind the officers’ skirmish line. He said he was lifting his credentials up when the officer opened fire.
Stern said the shot left him with severe pain, a large bruise and a limp. He also alleged that he was struck forcefully with a baton in the ribs, which left him with pain for two weeks, and was grazed by a second projectile in the knee.
Stern said he left the protest after seeing a fellow journalist get “shoved to the ground by a LAPD officer for no reason” and feared he would be targeted again by officers if he stayed.
Stern’s lawsuit alleged that LAPD officers were “given the green light to use less-lethal projectiles to thwart free speech and freedom of the press” and that they specifically targeted journalists by shooting projectiles “directly at them without justification, provocation or warning.”
He is suing the city of Los Angeles, LAPD Chief Michel Moore and multiple individual officers.
The department said Stern’s claims are being investigated but declined to comment on the litigation.
The department has previously denied targeting journalists at demonstrations and has lauded individual officers for responding bravely during the volatile Fairfax district event.
The department also has acknowledged shortcomings in its response to the spring protests and admitted to insufficient training with projectile weapons for some officers who were armed with them.
The LAPD is being sued by a raft of protesters alleging physical abuses with projectile weapons, and a federal judge is considering a request for an injunction on the weapons as part of a class-action claim against the department brought by Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and other advocacy groups and demonstrators.
In a separate lawsuit filed this week, Nasser Baker, a photojournalist with OnScene.TV, alleged that he was “physically pushed, struck and threatened” by L.A. County sheriff ’s deputies while videotaping interactions between deputies and protesters Sept. 12, 2020, outside of the St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, as two deputies who had been shot in a separate incident were being treated inside.
Baker claimed he shouted “I am media! I am media!” during the assault as another deputy said, “Get out of here, or I’ll break your f—ing camera!”
Baker alleged that the deputies acted “with the objective of stifling press coverage” to “suppress and chill free speech” and to prevent the dissemination of video showing the department’s use of excessive and violent force on peaceful protesters.
He said deputies never issued a dispersal order, instead attacking protesters and members of the media in an “egotistical and scaremongering” way that was “completely rogue and baseless.”
Baker is suing Los Angeles County, Sheriff Alex Villanueva and multiple deputies.
Deputy Trina Schrader, a sheriff ’s spokeswoman, said department officials were unfamiliar with the lawsuit but “respect the right of all to peacefully demonstrate and exercise their 1st Amendment rights” and “do not condone harassment of any type.”
Baker is not the first reporter to complain about deputies’ actions that night.
KPCC reporter Josie Huang was slammed to the ground by deputies and accused of interfering with an arrest as she covered the event, then was arrested. That incident, caught on video, drew widespread condemnation from other journalists and defenders of the media. Prosecutors declined to pursue the charges against Huang, determining that she was in a public space and did not appear to be intentionally interfering.
Both Stern and Baker allege that their constitutional and civil rights were violated and claim assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Both are seeking unspecified damages.
Their claims, if they go to court, will increase the recent scrutiny over how L.A.area law enforcement agencies handle journalists at protests.
In March, media advocates condemned the LAPD’s treatment of journalists at a protest over the clearing of a homeless encampment in Echo Park, after several journalists, including Los Angeles Times reporter James Queally, were detained and others were arrested as they sought to cover a clash in which officers surrounded demonstrators and began conducting mass arrests.
Journalists accused the LAPD of issuing confusing directives and attempting to force them into a designated observation area that would not have afforded a clear view of the protest or the mass arrests.
And media watchers expressed concern that, while reporters from prominent publications were released, some from less-established outlets were arrested and booked.
Last month, the Media Guild of the West released a statement calling on Moore, Villanueva and other Southern California law enforcement leaders and elected officials to immediately stop arresting and detaining journalists in the field and to ensure they have access to major events.
Additionally, the ACLU of Southern California sent a letter to Southern California law enforcement agencies condemning their recent treatment of journalists and rejecting the notion that journalists should be subject to dispersal orders.