The recent “No Kings” protest brought out millions nationwide. There’s been a lot of focus on what the protest means, both as a standalone event and as a potential starting point for further organizing and concrete demands. The protest was lauded for how overwhelmingly peaceful it was — which isn’t what you’d expect from a bunch of “Hamas terrorists, illegal terrorists, and violent criminals.” But there were pockets of violence at these protests; it sprang from the police. At a No Kings protest in California, the LAPD was accused of hit-and-running a protester along with shooting at reporters with less lethal ammunition for standing there menacingly. In a world where the Constitution actually mattered, you wouldn’t have to worry about the police shooting journalists doing their job documenting a protest because the officers would have a robust respect for the press and exercise of the First Amendment. However, we are in this one. Just days before the protest happened, the LAPD was fighting to get the injunction preventing them from using journalists as target practice removed. Knock LA has coverage:
In a unanimous vote on Friday morning, LA City Council put a halt to City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s attempt to lift an injunction on LAPD’s use of force against journalists. The City Attorney’s office withdrew their misguided motion the same day.
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Adam Rose, press rights chair at the Los Angeles Press Club, told LAist in a written statement, “Karen Bass is quick to run to the media for attention to criticize Trump for violating court orders (rightfully so!), but when the media is assaulted by her own LAPD, she never says a word…Instead of holding the department accountable, the city is spending even more money to hire an outside law firm so they can effectively beg a judge for permission to keep assaulting journalists for just doing their job. The mayor of Los Angeles needs to take charge here, and Bass has been completely absent.”
The takeaway here is that conversations about violence and lawlessness at protests are incomplete without a thorough analysis of all of the parties involved. Where is the room in public discourse to discuss protests being violent or not peaceful because of unlawful uses of force from the police? To the people who have the reflex to respond “Well, they were just doing their job,” you should also factor in injunctions and legal restraints that determine if the officers were doing their jobs well or not. An aside: the injunction obviously wasn’t enough to prevent some LAPD members from shooting journalists according to eye witness accounts, but how many more people would have been shot if Soto successfully got the injunction to shoot journalists lifted?
As protests continue, we will see talking heads and politicians demand that the people with cardboard signs and dinosaur costumes do whatever it takes to de-escalate and make sure that protests remain peaceful. Just keep that same energy for the people at the protest in uniform who are armed with guns and are disappointed that injunctions prevent them from opening fire as much as they’d like.
LAPD Wants Judge To Lift An Order Restricting Use Of Force Against The Press [LAist]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
The post LAPD Tried To Fight Order That Wouldn’t Let Them Shoot Journalists, Shot Them Anyway appeared first on Above the Law.
The recent “No Kings” protest brought out millions nationwide. There’s been a lot of focus on what the protest means, both as a standalone event and as a potential starting point for further organizing and concrete demands. The protest was lauded for how overwhelmingly peaceful it was — which isn’t what you’d expect from a bunch of “Hamas terrorists, illegal terrorists, and violent criminals.” But there were pockets of violence at these protests; it sprang from the police. At a No Kings protest in California, the LAPD was accused of hit-and-running a protester along with shooting at reporters with less lethal ammunition for standing there menacingly. In a world where the Constitution actually mattered, you wouldn’t have to worry about the police shooting journalists doing their job documenting a protest because the officers would have a robust respect for the press and exercise of the First Amendment. However, we are in this one. Just days before the protest happened, the LAPD was fighting to get the injunction preventing them from using journalists as target practice removed. Knock LA has coverage:
In a unanimous vote on Friday morning, LA City Council put a halt to City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s attempt to lift an injunction on LAPD’s use of force against journalists. The City Attorney’s office withdrew their misguided motion the same day.
…
Adam Rose, press rights chair at the Los Angeles Press Club, told LAist in a written statement, “Karen Bass is quick to run to the media for attention to criticize Trump for violating court orders (rightfully so!), but when the media is assaulted by her own LAPD, she never says a word…Instead of holding the department accountable, the city is spending even more money to hire an outside law firm so they can effectively beg a judge for permission to keep assaulting journalists for just doing their job. The mayor of Los Angeles needs to take charge here, and Bass has been completely absent.”
The takeaway here is that conversations about violence and lawlessness at protests are incomplete without a thorough analysis of all of the parties involved. Where is the room in public discourse to discuss protests being violent or not peaceful because of unlawful uses of force from the police? To the people who have the reflex to respond “Well, they were just doing their job,” you should also factor in injunctions and legal restraints that determine if the officers were doing their jobs well or not. An aside: the injunction obviously wasn’t enough to prevent some LAPD members from shooting journalists according to eye witness accounts, but how many more people would have been shot if Soto successfully got the injunction to shoot journalists lifted?
As protests continue, we will see talking heads and politicians demand that the people with cardboard signs and dinosaur costumes do whatever it takes to de-escalate and make sure that protests remain peaceful. Just keep that same energy for the people at the protest in uniform who are armed with guns and are disappointed that injunctions prevent them from opening fire as much as they’d like.
LAPD Wants Judge To Lift An Order Restricting Use Of Force Against The Press [LAist]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
The post LAPD Tried To Fight Order That Wouldn’t Let Them Shoot Journalists, Shot Them Anyway appeared first on Above the Law.
