Judge issues sharp rebukes of the LAPD and federal agents after anti-ICE protests

In June, 81-year-old Robert Detrano said he was hit in the face with a spray by federal agents as he was out protesting immigration raids in Santa Ana, with no provocation or warning.

“ It made me sick and made me cough, and I fell down to the ground,” the retired UC Irvine medical professor said.

He still doesn't know what hit him. And he wasn't the only one.

Injured journalists and protesters together with the Los Angeles Press Club and the media union the NewsGuild sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in June, arguing that federal agents' use of force during anti-ICE protests "punishes and suppresses the exercise of First Amendment-protected rights." The press club also sued the Los Angeles Police Department, citing violations of journalists’ rights while covering protests.

In back to-back rulings this week, a federal judge issued preliminary injunctions against the LAPD and DHS, restricting their use of force against the press. The ruling against DHS also protects legal observers and protesters, such as Detrano, from indiscriminate force.

About the ruling against DHS

“The First Amendment demands better,” Judge Hernán Vera of the Central District Court of California wrote in his 45-page opinion.

The judge’s injunction applies to Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel at the ACLU Southern California, called the judge’s decision “incredibly thorough.”

LAist has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment and to see if the government intends to appeal the injunction.

The judge said that federal agents used “the guise of protecting the public” to endanger large swathes of protesters and media.

Agents' indiscriminate use of force “will undoubtedly chill the media’s efforts to cover these public events and protestors seeking to express peacefully their views on national policies,” the judge wrote in his opinion.

He acknowledged that there are actors in protests who look to incite violence, but he wrote that “the actions of a relative few does not give DHS carte blanche to unleash near-lethal force on crowds of third parties in the vicinity.”

In his opinion, Vera wrote that federal agents also used weapons such as tear gas and pepper balls even when protesters tried to comply with orders to disperse.

The indiscriminate use of weapons, he wrote, supports the idea that agents were using force in retaliation against protesters.

About the ruling against the LAPD

In the ruling against the Los Angeles Police Department, the judge wrote, “It is déjà vu all over again.”

Vera wrote the latest protests presented “the latest chapter in a long and unfortunate saga of the LAPD’s use of unlawful force against members of the media.”

The judge wrote that the LAPD appeared to use projectiles to target journalists wearing visible gear that identified them as press.

LAist reached out to the LAPD for comment. We will update this story if and when we hear back.

A win for the First Amendment

The decisions were seen as a massive win for First Amendment advocates. It also comes as local law enforcement agencies — such as the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Santa Ana Police Department — are under scrutiny for the way they interact with the public during protests.

The judge wrote that the role of the journalist is “critical” in this moment where “the federal government is engaged in sudden and secretive immigration raids, which the public has limited opportunity to observe firsthand and so must rely upon the press."

Adam Rose, the press rights chair at the Los Angeles Press Club applauded the judge for upholding First Amendment protections.

“ When a reasonable person is afraid to go out and to speak freely, that is about as un-American and unpatriotic as it gets,” he said. “And when DHS is responsible for that, someone has to police the police. That's what the judge here is doing.”

The judge’s preliminary injunction, Rose said, is the first time he “ felt that someone with power and authority was taking this seriously and really trying to act to address the problems” with law enforcement intentionally targeting journalists as retaliation for informing the public.

When law enforcement indiscriminately targets protesters with less lethal weapons, Rose said, it has the effect of “chilling of rights.”

Rose said the LAPD’s response to protests this summer were “painfully familiar” to similar misconduct at protests over the years, including those that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020 and those linked to the Black Lives Matter movement.

“LAPD has failed to police itself for 25 years," Rose said. "Elected officials have failed to police LAPD too. Finally a federal judge has stepped in to do their job for them.”