A federal judge has inflicted a fatal wound on police overreach by broadening the ban on the use of crowd control weapons against journalists and protesters, a major victory for advocates of press freedom who have recorded at least 70 instances of reporter violence in the name of reporting on immigration protests in Los Angeles, as the battle between the First and Fourth Amendments continues.
Crowd control weapons have restrictions extended into federal court
Yahoo News reported that a federal judge blocked the use of crowd control weapons by federal agents against reporters and nonviolent protesters after arguing that the 1st Amendment requires it. City of Los Angeles attorneys and Homeland Security have had to defend that it is essential to make faster decisions about whether to deploy less-lethal force in the face of these unruly protests, and that journalists cannot always be immediately identified.
But U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera was not persuaded, issuing the same Tuesday limitations as he had issued in July regarding the use of less-lethal weapons during street demonstrations. Vera wrote that federal officers fired crowd control weapons without restraint, and with unexpected savagery.
The judicial intervention is dealing with persistent abuse patterns
In the opinion, which is 45 pages long, Vera stated that indeed, federal agents have put the lives of masses of peaceful protestors, legal observers, and journalists at risk, not to mention the community that has entrusted them to keep their government in check. The same judge made a similar injunction on Thursday in another lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Police Department on sustained allegations of excessive force against the members of the press who covered the demonstrations.
In August, fewer than three months after Vera had granted his temporary restraining order, which restricted the use of force, at least three reporters who had been covering a protest were left bleeding and bruised after being attacked by police batons. The case against the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday adds a provision to the earlier ruling made by Vera, similarly limiting the use of less-lethal weapons against protesters who themselves are not a threat of imminent harm to a law enforcement officer or other individual.
Press freedom organizations document systematic violence
According to RSF, at least 10 cases of police violence against journalists were monitored by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) during the night of August 8, 2025, in the case of breach of a temporary restraining order on the police force. RSF urges the LAPD to honor this ruling that it may not use excessive force and to take immediate action to stop its violent methods that have already led to at least 70 incidents against journalists.
Even court orders have difficulty in enforcement
The judgments constituted an important triumph of a group of media freedom groups that had been petitioning the government that court action was needed in order to reduce unchecked malpractice. The plaintiff’s attorney, Carol Sobel, said that the LAPD has a history of disregarding past court orders. Institutional memory is non-existent. Nobody looks at what the injunctions of the past were. There is no humility at all, Sobel said.
The use of crowd control devices such as hard-foam projectile launchers, tear gas, stun grenades, and batons may not be used on or anywhere near members of the press, legal observers, or even protesters unless the use of such force is deemed necessary to halt an imminent and severe threat of bodily injuries to an individual. This historic court action will be seen as a pivotal step to freedom of the press in America, because the law enforcement agencies will have clear limits to their authority.