Nick Stern, a British news photographer based in Los Angeles, is set to undergo emergency surgery for a wound sustained during the standoff between police and anti-Ice protesters in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Stern told the Guardian he had been covering the protest near a branch of Home Depot in Paramount, where immigrants workers are typically hired for day work, when he felt a sharp pain in his leg.
“I’m walking around taking photos and was untouched until around 9pm. I was walking across the road when I felt a mighty pain in my leg. I put my hand down and felt a lump kind of sticking out the back of my leg,” he said.
Stern believes he was likely hit my a non-lethal round that deputies were using along with flash-bang stun grenades for crowd control.
“People came over to help and got me on the curb. A medic was called, who cut off my clothes. In my leg was what felt like a five centimeter hole with muscle hanging out of it and blood all down my leg. The medic put a tourniquet on it, and a journalist I was with took me to ER.”
“It hurt so much that I thought they might be firing live rounds,” he said. “I’ve been with non lethal rounds before. They hurt like hell but generally don’t break the skin. But the blood made me think it was a live round.”
Stern is currently at the trauma center at Long Beach Memorial awaiting surgery. A doctor who looked at his X-rays said the dimensions of his wound indicated he had been struck by a non-lethal round.
The LA county sheriff’s department deployed more than 100 deputies in response to the protest. Sheriff Robert Luna estimated that the crowd grew to about 350 to 400 people and said it had become violent, with some of the protesters throwing objects at federal agents and law enforcement officers.
During the protest police deployed teargas and other munitions.
“Anybody has the right to peacefully assemble, and exercise their first amendment rights, but when that crosses the line to where you are attacking other people, utilizing violence, or any destruction of property, that’s where we as a department has to step in, warn people, and people may get arrested,” said Luna.
“Deputies will be defending themselves. I don’t think anybody expects our deputy sheriffs to take rocks and bottles without defending themselves.”
Stern said protesters appeared to be “very angry” and chanting slogans including “Ice out of LA!”
“There’s a lot of large Hispanic population in Paramount,” Stern said. “They gave the impression from what they were chanting that it was their town and they didn’t want Ice there.”
