Michael Nigro was in his element, snapping photos of a phalanx of Los Angeles Police Department officers pushing back protesters, when his neck jerked to the side and his helmet registered a percussive "ding."
The non-lethal bullet did not injure the veteran freelance photographer, thanks to that protection.
"It felt very very intentional," Nigro tells NPR of the incident last Monday at a rally against ICE raids, "a chilling effect to convince us to go away and not document what's occurring."
Press advocates say such episodes have become common at the often charged and sometimes violent protests that have played out in Los Angeles over the past 10 days. They say law enforcement officials at the protests did not always demonstrate restraint or distinguish between people who pose a threat and others who are reporting on developments.
The messy protests that have unfolded in real time on cable television and social media carry a strong sense of theatricality but also the threat of violence — from both sides. In some instances, protesters have attacked and burned cars. But several journalists allege police have attacked protesters and reporters.
And at times, those journalists have reported law enforcement exacerbated rather than simply encountered tensions with protesters — an assessment that contradicts official statements.
"We're on TV," ABC News reporter Matt Guttman said as a police officer bellowed at him. "And now you're pushing me on live television. We didn't push anyone. You know that's true."
"Obviously, massively high tensions here," Guttman said, turning to the camera, while trying to placate the increasingly agitated officers. "These guys are tired. It's also hot. It's been a long day and a long week ... I think there has been respect between the media and law enforcement here. We have kept our distance."
LAPD has not returned NPR's detailed requests for comment. Nor has the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.
L.A. Police Commissioner Jim McDonnell said the No Kings protests Saturday, which have built on the momentum of the anti-ICE demonstrations of recent days, started peacefully in Los Angeles.
"It went well until police officers started being attacked — the LAPD, the LASD and the [California Highway Patrol]," McDonnell told a reporter from local station KNBC. Protesters have said confrontational law enforcement officials changed the tenure of the encounters.
Even prior to the No Kings events, protests over President Trump's immigration policies popped up in cities across the country as ICE agents have seized and detained people suspected of being in the country without full legal status — many of whom have no criminal record and face no criminal charges.
In Los Angeles, Trump took the unusual step of nationalizing units of the California National Guard and also sent in U.S. Marines over the objections of Gavin Newsom, the state's Democratic governor.
The state of California is suing the administration over the move, alleging the president is unlawfully using those troops "for law enforcement purposes on the streets of a civilian city."
Trump did not invoke the Insurrection Act to do so. The last time U.S. troops were sent to handle protests and riots was 1992 — also in Los Angeles, when violent riots broke out over the acquittal of police officers charged with beating Rodney King. More than 60 people died in those riots. These protests have not matched that scale or ferocity.
Despite the controversy over the presence of federal troops, almost all of the incidents cited by press rights advocates have involved local L.A. law enforcement.
History of tensions between police and journalists
"This isn't new here. History repeats itself," says Adam Rose, press rights chair of the Los Angeles Press Club. "The LAPD — and often the L.A. Sheriff's Department as well — arrest and attack journalists. They will arrest them. They will detain them. And they will cause serious injury as well with these 'less-lethal' munitions."
Decades ago, the LAPD police and the LA press maintained a cozy relationship. But that turned sour.
In 2021, the LAPD swept a major city park of a homeless encampment, as NPR has previously reported. Police detained at least 16 journalists in a single night. Two reporters and an independent news blogger were arrested and held at a police station for hours. Two other reporters were zip-tied at the scene. Officers shot two photojournalists with "less-lethal" rubber bullets.
Capt. Stacy Spell, at that time the chief LAPD spokesman, later told NPR that it was often hard for police officers to figure out whether someone was a journalist or not.
"Once upon a time there was a very traditional look as to what the media looked like," Spell said. "And now there are more independents and more people who post on social media or online or use some form of technology to express their views or their points or their stories." He said the priority was to keep the public safe.
Over three dozen incidents tallied
In 2022, in part as a result of that incident, California legislators revised state law to specify that journalists have the right to be in public spaces during upheaval — even if others must disburse or follow a curfew.
Rose was part of an intense effort to secure those changes. At his initiative, the press club is once more compiling a database about incidents involving journalists and law enforcement in L.A. It has compiled more than three dozen such instances it says it has verified that have occurred since the protests over the ICE raids began in Los Angeles earlier this month.
"In order to have an informed public, we must have a free press," Rose says. "When journalists can't tell that story — and can't tell that story safely — that prevents the story from being told. That right has been deprived, not just for the journalists, but for the public at large."
The incidents have gained national attention. On Friday, a coalition led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent a letter of protest to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who until last fall was a Fox News host, and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, as well as the Los Angeles police chief and the Los Angeles County sheriff.
"While we also recognize the important role of law enforcement to protect public safety and crowd control, the right and ability of the press to document law enforcement and other government activity safely and effectively is foundational to self-government and has long been recognized and protected by the courts," the letter stated. It was signed by 60 news organizations and press rights groups, including NPR.
Consider a selection of the episodes that the press club has compiled, including some that were captured live in the moment by the journalists themselves:
- An Australian television correspondent was shot by a law enforcement officer with a rubber bullet during a live shot as she stood to the side of protests in downtown Los Angeles. The officer taking aim could be seen in the background as it happened.
- A photographer for the New York Post was struck in the forehead by another rubber bullet, his stunning image capturing its path immediately before impact. "I just got shot in the head," the visual journalist, Toby Canham, exclaimed in real-time as his digital camera was rolling.
- A veteran Los Angeles Times reporter, by his account, says he was shoved by a Los Angeles Police Department officer after reminding him that journalists were exempt, under state law, from the city's recently imposed curfew. Several of his colleagues reported being struck by "police projectiles."
- A student journalist says LAPD officers shot him twice with rubber bullets. One nearly severed the tip of his pinky, which required surgical reattachment.
- A freelance journalist says he believes he was shot by a deputy from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. A CT scan showed what appears to be a 40mm "less lethal" munition embedded in a two-inch hole in the reporter's leg.
- A New York Times reporter was assessed at a hospital after being struck by another non-lethal round.
Journalists for CNN were led from areas of protest and conflict with hands behind their back — though police told them they were being detained, though not arrested. A Fox crew encountered a "flash bang" projectile near their vehicle — but said they thought it wasn't aimed at them.
CNN and Fox News have played down the seriousness of those episodes.
Other journalists say they believe they were targeted; in other instances, they allege little discretion was exercised between subduing protests that might get out of hand and repelling the press.
While rubber bullets are considered "less lethal" munitions, they can do harm. A peer-reviewed article published in 2017 in the medical journal BMJ Open found that rubber and plastic bullets caused "significant morbidity and mortality" as well as significant injury in many of those who survived being hit. The study concluded that those non-lethal bullets "do not appear to be appropriate weapons for use in crowd-control settings."
"I was like, 'Okay, somebody has it out for me,'" says Nigro, the veteran photographer.
He says he's covered violent protests and combat, including the war in Ukraine. He says his helmet and flak jacket are each marked "press" on both sides and that he carries two professional grade cameras clearly defining him as a working reporter to authorities.
"We are not up in their faces. We are not preventing them from doing their job," Nigro says. "When you have professionals that are gauging a situation as volatile as that, and there are press around, a head shot like that at close range feels like it's intentional."
Copyright 2025 NPR
