When photojournalist Linda Tirado was covering a Minneapolis protest in May 2020 – days after George Floyd was killed – she was shot in the face with a plastic bullet. Tirado has since spoken about the traumatic brain injury she suffered on that day, which has changed her life. Rubber bullets. Plastic bullets. These are not harmless deterrents – they are weapons. And once again they’re being used against journalists in the USA. According to a database maintained by the Los Angeles Press Club, more than 30 cases of “police violence” against journalists have been reported over the past week in LA alone.
It’s not just tragic when this happens to journalists. It’s symbolic. If you’re a reporter and you saw the footage of Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi crying in pain upon being shot in the leg, you’d think twice about how – and even if – you cover the next protest. And that hesitation? That’s one way censorship takes root.
In LA, the intimidation escalated in other ways. As law enforcement deployed bullets, bean bags and tear gas against both protesters and press, a police helicopter circled overhead and issued a warning: “I have all of you on camera. I’m going to come to your house.” Was it a bluff? Maybe. But again that’s not the point. “Even if it were a joke, it was clearly designed to make the public afraid to exercise its First Amendment rights to protest and to hold government officials, including LAPD officers, accountable for their actions,” said Jonathan Markovitz, staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California.
In another example of escalating authoritarianism, the narrative has been spun. While there was some vandalism and violence, accounts suggest it was small-scale (see a comparison here to the 1992 unrest in LA following the brutal assault of Rodney King for reference). President Donald Trump ran with a different line. He called the protests a “rebellion” against the government and said LA “would be burning” because of “paid insurrectionists” and “paid troublemakers” – language used to both turn people against the protesters and justify the heavy-handed response. Yesterday the Northern District Court of California ruled “his actions were illegal”.
Some are calling LA a dress rehearsal for the midterms. I’d say the show has already started. Trump threatened to forcibly put down any protests that interfered with the military parade he ordered for his birthday on Saturday. Despite this millions did take to the streets across the USA, but sadly not without violence – a gunman shot two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses early Saturday morning, killing one of the couples, with subsequent protests cancelled in the state, while in Texas, the state Capitol was evacuated following a “credible threat” against legislators planning to attend a protest.
A sober reminder – we’re just six months into Trump’s second term. Over two years into his first term, Jan Fox wrote for Index that “many worry that the country of some 329 million people, which has prided itself on modelling the greatest democracy in the world, is not immune to unpicking some of its checks and balances”. Accuse me of Trump derangement syndrome all you want – I’d say we’re already beyond the point of just worrying.
