The reporter, Lauren Tomasi of 9News Australia, a CNN affiliate, was conducting a live broadcast from the scene of a protest on Sunday afternoon when she was hit.
Video of the broadcast shows Ms. Tomasi standing off to the side of an intersection in downtown Los Angeles.
moving in on horseback, firing rubber bullets,” Ms. Tomasi says in the report, referring to officers from the Los Angeles Police Department.
According to the broadcaster, Ms. Tomasi was hit with a projectile and left sore but not seriously hurt.
A New York Times reporter was struck with a nonlethal round by officers late Sunday in downtown Los Angeles.
A television reporter was hit by a nonlethal projectile fired by a law enforcement officer while she was on the air, one of several journalists hurt while covering the protests in Los Angeles.
On Sunday afternoon, Lauren Tomasi, a reporter for CNN affiliate 9News Australia, was struck while live-streaming from the protest site.
Ms. Tomasi can be seen standing off to the side of an intersection in downtown Los Angeles on the broadcast’s video. Booms can be heard in the background as she watches armed police officers, some mounted, engage protesters.
Now that things are rapidly getting worse, the L. A. P. . A. According to the report, Ms. Tomasi describes officers from the Los Angeles Police Department “moving in on horseback, firing rubber bullets.”.
A police officer is then seen on camera pointing a gun at Ms. Tomasi and firing it. She gives a shriek and hobbles off. The broadcaster claimed that Ms. Tomasi was struck by a projectile and was only slightly injured.
In a statement supporting Ms. Tomasi, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade stated that “all journalists should be able to do their work safely,” according to CNN. “”.
It wasn’t immediately apparent which law enforcement agency the officer was affiliated with or if they had been aiming at Ms. Tomasi. The letter L. a. A. D. Among the organizations whose officers were responding to the demonstrations were the Department of Homeland Security and the California Highway Patrol.
The L. a. P. . D. stated that it had “no statement or comment on any particular incident pertaining to the protests.”. “”.
According to the California Highway Patrol, the incident did not involve them.
Although foam rounds and projectiles are promoted as nonlethal substitutes for live ammunition, their potential to cause severe injuries has led to calls for their outlawing. Police departments frequently employ these rounds to manage crowds during demonstrations or disturbances; in 2020, they were employed during the nationwide demonstrations following George Floyd’s death.
In a different episode, British photojournalist Nick Stern, who works in Southern California, told The Guardian that he was covering a protest in Paramount, a city in Los Angeles County, on Saturday when he was fatally wounded by what looked to be a nonlethal projectile. According to news media reports, he was taken in for surgery after suffering a wound to his leg.
In downtown Los Angeles late Sunday, police fired a nonlethal round at a reporter for the New York Times. The reporter received hospital treatment but was not gravely hurt.
