Police Keep Shooting Journalists During LA Protests

Multiple journalists and reporters have been shot with rubber bullets by police officers during the protests in Los Angeles this week, with at least one requiring an emergency surgery following the shot. These are supposed to be “non lethal” methods to contain people, but the officers are using the weapons in the wrong way, and that’s now leading to serious injuries. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The LAPD seems to be struggling greatly during these protests in Los Angeles because wouldn't you know it? These darned police officers continue firing rubber bullets at reporters and, you know, it's, it's fairly easy usually to tell who is a reporter and who is not considering the fact that they typically have a camera crew and are talking into a microphone. Nevertheless, multiple reporters have been struck by these supposedly less lethal rounds. So let's go through the list because some of the injuries suffered by some of these reporters don't seem all that, uh, mild. The first one is Toby Canham. Ken, who is a veteran photographer, was on assignment for the New York Post, was filming police and protestors from an elevated position just off the 1 0 1 freeway when a hi, uh, California Highway Patrol officer fired a rubber bullet at him from about a hundred yards away, striking him in the forehead footage captured by can him who was wearing a press pass at the time shows he fell to the ground after being hit.

He was left with a large bruise on his forehead, spent Monday in the hospital being treated for whiplash and neck pain. Then you have Nick Stern, a British news photographer who underwent emergency surgery after being hit by a non-lethal round. While he was documenting the confrontation between police and protestors, he told the BBC that a plastic bullet tore into his thigh and that several protestors helped carry him away from the area before a medic attended to him. He's recovering at a hospital in Long Beach following surgery to remove the round. Lauren Te Massey, the, uh, Australian US News correspondent was hit in the leg by a non-lethal RoundBar reporting live from downtown Los Angeles this past Saturday. Uh, she says she's a bit sore, but she is. Okay. Then you have, uh, Ryan Mina and Sean Beckner car, uh, car Mitchell Mina, who is a crime reporter with the LA Daily News and videographer, Sean Beckner car.

Mitchell reported being shot with non-lethal rounds while covering the protest on Friday. Homeland Security agents shot me and other journalists with pepper ball bullets. Yesterday in Los Angeles, Mina wrote on Twitter and showed a photo of the bruises that she had received, and those are the ones obviously, that we know about. Here's the thing, if you've been watching any of the footage or if you've seen any of the photographs of the police with these supposedly less lethal rounds, they're not called non-lethal. They're called less lethal. Lethal 'cause they're less likely to kill you, but they can still kill you. Um, they're aiming them incorrectly. Rubber bullets are not meant to be shot at a human being. These rubber bullets that these police are using are meant to be shot at the ground where

Being rubber, they will bounce up after losing a lot of momentum, but still carry enough to, you know, bruise somebody to the point where they may think twice about what they're doing, but they are not, under any circumstances, supposed to be fired directly at a human being. And yet that is what's happening. That's why this is an issue. If you have a reporter standing in the middle of protesters that are currently being shot by rubber bullets, you know, that's one thing I'm not okay with it, but that's at least slightly more understandable. These police officers, however, are literally aiming for human bodies, not for the ground. They are ignoring their training. They are ignoring the way these weapons are meant to be used and somebody will get killed.