Police Attack Journalists and Protesters in Los Angeles

Police have attacked journalists (at last count, 20 to 30 of them), protesters and at least one woman who was simply trying to walk home alone in Los Angeles and the greater Los Angeles area.

So far:

• Lauren Tomasi of 9 News in Australia was broadcasting live when a Los Angeles Police Department officer visible in the frame lifted his weapon, aimed, fired, and struck her in the leg with a less lethal round.
• Toby Canham was standing alone under a freeway overpass, filming with a tripod, away from crowds. A California Highway Patrol officer shot him in the forehead. He suffered whiplash and a hematoma.
• British photojournalists Nick Stern was on assignment when he was hit in the leg by a 14-millimeter sponge round fired at close range. He nearly lost consciousness from blood loss and had to be carried to an emergency room, where he needed surgery to remove the round from his thigh.
• Livia Albeck-Ripka of New York Times was struck just below the ribs. Police have yet to acknowledge shooting her.
• Lauren Day of Australia’s ABC network was tear-gassed and hit by pepper rounds while reporting. Her cameraman took a hit in the chest.
• Kimie Saito, age 74, was covering a protest in Paramount for the World Socialist Web Site. Officers shot her in the back with a rubber bullet.
• Sergio Olmos, who has been in war zones, was filming with his iPhone when officers hit him in the chest with a 40mm sponge grenade. “It was the most amount of less-lethals I’ve seen used in a single-day protest.” He said this was worse than the war zones he has been in, and the police presence seemed “like a civil war.”
• A woman who was protesting was shot in the head by police while trying to shelter behind a wall. Video shows her head bleeding profusely and her body on the pavement. People screamed at police to call an ambulance but officers only formed a perimeter around her and stood there, doing nothing to help her.
• The Tennessee Holler was perhaps the first media to notice video of a woman trying to walk home alone at night on a sidewalk, blocked from getting home by a line of police. She stopped a few yards away. Exactly what she and they said was not clear on the video. Then police shot her with a less lethal round at close range. She fell, injured. The person recording video and a woman with her ran across the street to offer aid. Police threatened to shoot them too while they tried to move the injured woman away from them to safety.
• Two videos of the same incident shot from different angles show LAPD mounted officers directing their horses to kick or walk on a man who is lying on the street, trying to curl up and protect himself. First one horse kicked him. Then an officer made another horse walk over him and stomp him. When the man tried to stand up, a third police officer grabbed him and threw him down.