A federal district judge on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the Department of Homeland Security from assaulting and threatening journalists, legal observers, and protesters without probable cause.
In a 45-page opinion, Judge Hernán Vera of the Central District Court of California concluded that “the record includes detailed and credible declarations from nearly 50 journalists, legal observers, and protesters,” which showed immigration agents using rubber bullets and tear gas to respond to those protesting and reporting the immigration raids.
Vera cites incidents in downtown L.A., where journalists were “reportedly hit with pepper balls; in Maywood, where “federal agents teargassed a small group of protesters; and in Camarillo and Carpinteria, where agents “deployed countless volleys of tear gas, rubber bullets, and smoke bombs” on families of detained farm workers and journalists.
This “indiscriminate use of force,” according to Vera’s ruling, “will undoubtedly chill the media’s efforts to cover these public events and protestors seeking to express peacefully their views on national policies.”
The preliminary injunction prohibits DHS agents from dispersing or assaulting the press or legal observers unless they have probable cause to believe an individual has committed a crime unrelated to failing to obey a dispersal order.
It also bars them from using batons, chemical irritants, and flash-bang grenades on members of the press, legal observers, and protesters who are not posing a threat of harm to law enforcement or another person.
The injunction applies to the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.
It stems from a lawsuit filed in June by the Los Angeles Press Club, NewsGuild – Communications Workers of America (CWA), three journalists, two individual protesters, and a legal observer against the DHS.
“In these historic times, when press freedoms are under attack, this decision is a powerful reminder that journalists must be protected, not met with violence,” Ryanne Mena, a journalist and plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “By granting this relief, the court has affirmed the journalistic duty to our communities and the essential role of a free press.”
The judge also granted a preliminary injunction against the Los Angeles Police Department. Vera said that during protests against the raids, the LAPD “excluded members of the media from public areas or subjected them to kinetic impact projectiles, tear gas, and other forms of physical force.”
“The present action forms the latest chapter in a long and unfortunate saga of the LAPD’s use of unlawful force against members of the media,” Vera said.
The injunction prohibits LAPD from arresting, detaining, or citing any journalist covering a protest in L.A. “for not dispersing following the issuance of an order to disperse.”