British photojournalist struck by non -lethal rounds during Los Angeles demonstrations | California

Nick Stern, a British photographer based in Los Angeles, is expected to undergo emergency surgery for an injury suffered during the dead end between police and anti-ice demonstrators in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Stern told the Guardian that he covered the demonstration near a branch of Home Depot in Paramount, where immigrant workers are generally hired for a day’s work, when he felt strong pain in the leg.

“I walk by taking photos and I was not hit until 9 pm. I crossed the road when I felt a powerful pain on my leg. I put my hand and I felt a piece of bump to get out of the back of my leg,” he said.

Stern thinks he probably struck my non-lethal turn that the deputies used as well as flash-bang dizzying grenades for the control of crowds.

“People came to help and put me on the sidewalk. A doctor was called, who cut my clothes. In my leg, that was what looked like a hole of five centimeters with dragging muscles and blood in my leg. The doctor put a tourniquet on it, and a journalist with whom I was shattered. ”

“It was so much trouble that I thought they could take live blows,” he said. “I have already been with non -mortal towers. They hurt like hell but generally do not break the skin. But blood made me think that it was a live. ”

Stern is currently at the Trauma Center for Long Beach Memorial awaiting surgery. A doctor who looked at his x -rays said that the dimensions of his injury said he had been struck by a non -lethal turn.

The Sheriff’s Department of the County of Los Angeles has deployed more than 100 deputies in response to the event. The Sheriff Robert Luna estimated that the crowd increased to around 350 to 400 people and said that it had become violent, some of the demonstrators throwing objects to federal agents and agents of the application of laws.

During the demonstration, the police deployed tear gas and other ammunition.

“Everyone has the right to meet peacefully and exercise their first amendment rights, but when it crosses the line where you attack other people, using violence or all the destruction of goods, this is where we, as department, must intervene, warn people and people can be arrested,” said Luna.

“The deputies will defend themselves. I do not think that anyone expects our assistant sheriffs to take rocks and bottles without defending themselves. ”

Stern said that the demonstrators seemed to be “very angry” and singing slogans, including “Ice Out of la!”

“There is a lot of large Hispanic population in Paramount,” said Stern. “They gave the impression of what they sang that it was their city and that they did not want ice there.”