Trump Called Threat to Journalistic Freedom After Foreign Press Hit by 'Non-Lethal' Rounds

Trump has been called a threat to journalistic freedom by an Australian senator after two members of the press were injured after being hit by "non-lethal" rounds, one Australian and one British.

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The Trump administration’s propaganda about the protests in Los Angeles took a literal hit after two members of the press were hit by ‘non-lethal’ rounds while covering the protests and the aggressive maneuvers of law enforcement.

Australian Journalist Shot by Non-Lethal Round Fired by Police

An Australian journalist named Lauren Tomasi was hit by a non-lethal’ round fired by a police officer while standing in the middle of the street clearly taping a segment for 9 News in Australia.

You can see in this clip that the police aimed right for her and her camera operator. A protester followed up by yelling at them, “You just f*cking shot a reporter!”

"It really did hurt, I'd say they were the size of a golf ball," Tomasi said on Melbourne's 3AW radio. "I guess it comes part and parcel of the job sometimes but it does ... give you a sense of ... the situation here is out of control."

Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young urged Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to hold Donald Trump accountable, saying it was "simply shocking and completely unacceptable" that U.S. authorities would shoot at an Australian journalist, SBS News reported.

"As Albanese is preparing for his first meeting with President Trump, the first thing he must tell the president is to stop shooting at our journalists," she said.

"Freedom of the press is a fundamental pillar of a strong, functioning democracy."

An Australian Coalition senator noted that it appeared from the footage that the reporter was targeted but didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

“Trump is a threat to journalistic freedom and to democratic values and we cannot afford, as Australians, to sit by and see an attack on those values by US authorities shooting at one of our journalists,” senator Hanson-Young is reported as saying by AAP.

British News Photographer Shot

Additionally, a British news photographer who now lives in the U.S. had to have emergency surgery after being hit by a 'non-lethal’ bullet while documenting the protests in Los Angeles.

“Nick Stern was covering the protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday when he said a three-inch "plastic bullet" tore into his thigh,” the BBC reported.

‘There was something hard sticking out of the back of my leg and my leg was getting wet from blood,’ he told the BBC.”

Protester Seemingly Shot in Head

There is also a video of a woman protester who is bleeding from her head “as people around her accuse riot police of having hit her with a rubber bullet.”

This Doesn’t Look Good for the U.S.

Why is law enforcement shooting toward the press?

Why are they shooting these 'non-lethal’ bullets at people, when they are supposed to be shot at the ground or at the lower body because they can be lethal if fired directly at the head?

Protests Were Largely Peaceful Before Being Inflamed by Trump

Trump said he was sending 2000 troops from the National Guard, but there are reportedly about 300 on the ground. Trump also put 500 Marines been put on “prepare to deploy” orders before the protests escalated as a result of Trump sending in the National Guard.

Lest anyone buy the Trump administration’s propaganda about the protests in Los Angeles, the local police had the protests under control. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said that the protests were largely peaceful, and that they could handle the clashes that did turn violent.

There was no reason to bring in the National Guard, and in fact both Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass explicitly said they did not want the National Guard to come in and did not need them.

The entire world can see that Trump sent in the National Guard to inflame the protests against their inhumane ICE raids, and they also know that he not only did not call in the National Guard during the insurrection he was impeached for inciting on January 6th when his supporters violently stormed the Capitol and attacked police officers in their efforts to “hang” Mike Pence and more.

Therefore, Trump’s claims that he called in the National Guard because the protests were unlawful don’t hold up.

Most critically as he and his administration dehumanize immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists,” Trump is a convicted felon who pardoned violent January 6th insurrectionists who abused and assaulted law enforcement and he was found liable for sexual assault.

Violence is not right as a form of protest and it does not work. But the violence we are witnessing in Los Angeles is a result of militant policing and performatively cruel ICE raids.

Trump escalated what was a largely peaceful protest against unnecessarily violent and traumatizing immigration raids in LA by masked and unidentified ICE agents and then U.S. law enforcement shot ‘non-lethal’ bullets at British and Australian members of the press, thereby awakening the world to the tactics being used against the media and citizens here in the U.S.

Shooting at the international press is the sort of thuggish self-own we can expect from our militarized law enforcement, which is one of many reasons why free countries do not use the military to enforce the law in their own borders.

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