Journalist Mel Buer shoved by LAPD, threatened with arrest at LA anti-ICE protest

Independent journalist Mel Buer was filming a protest against immigration raids outside the downtown Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center on April 11, 2026, when Los Angeles Police Department officers began making arrests and turned on the press. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, officers positioned themselves in front of clearly identified members of the media, advanced with batons, and pushed roughly half a dozen reporters down the street away from the police action. Buer said she was shoved hard enough that her ribs hurt for about two hours; colleagues told her she had taken a baton to the ribs. One officer, using a megaphone, told the assembled press that the area had been declared an emergency operation and that they were "subject to arrest."

California law permits journalists to cover protests, exempts them from dispersal orders, and protects them from arrest or police interference while doing so, and a federal preliminary injunction against the city is in place to uphold those protections. Buer, who two weeks earlier had been caught in a police kettle and threatened with arrest at another Los Angeles protest, said her central frustration is the confusing and contradictory directives given to the press, with officers resorting to batons and shoving when reporters do not move quickly enough.

In an emailed statement, an LAPD public information officer told the Tracker that an unlawful assembly had been declared in response to "vandalism and in the interest of public safety," and that the department is aware of the complaints and that each allegation "will be subject to a comprehensive and thorough investigation." The incident is one of a cluster of press-freedom violations documented around Los Angeles immigration-enforcement protests in spring 2026, but it is a distinct event — its own date, journalist, and specific use of force against the press.