Showing posts with label photographer arrests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photographer arrests. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.

 Via Press Freedom Tracker

August 13, 2025




Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.

Protests in LA began in early June in response to federal raids of workplaces and areas in and around the city where immigrant day laborers gather, amid the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown. Raids at Home Depots in early August took place seemingly in defiance of a July 11 court order temporarily prohibiting federal agents from using discriminatory profiling.

On Aug. 8, two days after an immigration raid in the parking lot of a Home Depot in LA’s Westlake neighborhood, protesters gathered at the store and marched to the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown. The demonstrators and the journalists covering them encountered a violent response from Los Angeles Police Department officers, violating a court order protecting the press from arrest, assault or other interference.

Gowdy, who was visiting from Seattle, Washington, said he had been photographing the Aug. 8 protest with his partner, fellow journalist Carrie Schreck. The two began documenting the demonstration as protesters started to march. The protest remained peaceful, Gowdy said, until the LAPD arrived.

“They basically lined up and without any provocation, in order to move people, started just swinging their batons indiscriminately,” he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Gowdy watched as one journalist, Nick Stern, waving his press badge to officers, was struck in the face with a police baton. Gowdy himself was thrown to the ground by several officers, scraping his elbow and damaging the metal connectors on the strap holding his spare camera lenses.

“They were so aggressive and wild-eyed and violent,” he said of the LAPD.

After police declared the protest an unlawful assembly, officers pushed demonstrators farther from the detention center. Gowdy and Schreck had stopped photographing and were leaving the area when they were suddenly kettled, or herded by police, along with a handful of journalists and demonstrators, just three blocks from Schreck’s apartment.

Some had press credentials, but Gowdy said officers ignored them.

“They said they didn’t care, and that everyone should have to line up against the wall,” Gowdy recalled.

The journalists’ hands were placed in zip-tie restraints. While some were released, Gowdy and Schreck remained detained for not having physical press badges. Despite carrying camera gear and being vouched for by their colleagues, the officers questioned their legitimacy and denied their requests to speak with a public information officer.

Gowdy offered to show digital credentials and suggested a quick online search to verify his work with major news outlets, but was told he’d be cited for failure to disperse. He and Schreck were taken to a nearby police station and eventually released after more than two hours in custody.

Gowdy said such traumatic encounters can discourage journalists from covering protests.

“In this case, the law was on our side,” he said. “But they didn’t seem to know the law, or they willfully disregarded it in order to intimidate and harass us.”

Gowdy said he doesn’t wear a press badge when he covers protests in Seattle, after it made him a police target. Covering the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, he saw how press credentials can also attract threats from demonstrators. Still, he said this incident convinced him to carry one just in case.

The LAPD did not respond to a Tracker request for comment about the detained journalists. In a statement posted to the social platform X, the department’s Central Division wrote that an unlawful assembly was declared “due to the aggressive nature of a few demonstrators.”

“The protest went into the late night hours with people refusing to disperse,” it continued. “Central Division will continue to support 1st Amendment rights of all people. However, if violence or criminal activity occurs, laws will be enforced.”


The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to tips@pressfreedomtracker.us.

Monday, September 17, 2012

HERE WE GO AGAIN: OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTS




"One officer repeatedly shoved photographers with a baton and a police lieutenant warned that no more photographs should be taken. “That’s over with,” the lieutenant said."

Arrests Near Stock Exchange Top 100 on Occupy Wall St. Anniversary

UPDATE: One Year of Occupy. One Year of Journalist Arrests

UPDATE: NYPD Caught on Video Violently Shoving Photographer

NYPD Continues Arresting Photogs at Occupy Wall Street Anniversary Protest

UPDATE: The detention of journalists again brought back memories of last fall, when the NYPD on occasion arrested journalists wearing NYPD credentials.

Dozens of Occupy Wall Street arrests in NYC

Two Photogs, One Journalist Arrested as Activists Descend Upon Wall Street for Anniversary

Student editor arrested while covering Occupy Wall Street anniversary protests
Ironically, the arrests take place on Constitution Day, a day which Congress has set as a day to celebrate, study and discuss the United States Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.

Civil Rights and Press Freedom One Year After Occupy

In Pictures: Occupy Wall Street protesters hold rally in New York to mark anniversary


A New York City Police Department officer pushes photographer Craig Ruttle during the Occupy Wall Street protestPicture: STAN HONDA/AFP/GettyImages


Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, gave the following statement:
NPPA has been receiving reports from a number of our members who are covering the OWS demonstrations in NY. We are deeply concerned and troubled by the aggressive and indiscriminate manner in which officers and command staff are allegedly treating those exercising their First Amendment rights to photograph and record matters of public concern on the streets of NY. These acts of intimidation, detention and sometimes arrest continue to occur despite Commissioner Kelly's Finest message (reminding 'members of the service of their obligations to cooperate with media representatives acting in a news-gathering capacity at the scene of police incidents'), issued last year in response to the arrests of journalists covering the events in and around Zuccotti Park, as well as specific directives in the NYPD Patrol Guide regarding the rights of "Observers at the scene of Police Incidents."

It should also be noted that whereas the Tampa and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Departments chose to work with NPPA and other organizations in order to prevent these incidents during the recent political conventions held in those cities (where no journalists were arrested), the NYPD has declined to accept similar offers of training. While NPPA appreciates the fact that NYPD has adopted the above referenced guidelines, without proper training and appropriate disciplinary action, those directives are just pieces of paper.


Related: Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country, Part Two