• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

First Amendment advocates scored a legal win on Wednesday when a federal judge ruled that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cannot use force against journalists trying to cover protests against immigration raids in California. 

On paper, this means that reporters can pursue their “protected activity” without fear of injury on the part of DHS. 

Having reviewed multiple episodes of DHS using tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls and other supposedly non-lethal weapons against protestors and the media, U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting such behavior. 

Vera commented that the presence of some violent individuals at the protests “does not give Defendants a blank check to employ unrestricted use of crowd control.” Indeed, he added that the response showed “persuasive evidence of retaliatory intent.” 

The suit was filed in June by the Los Angeles Press Club, NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America and several journalists. It accused the defendants, Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, and the DHS, of “unnecessary and excessive violence to prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights to report on, observe, and protest government actions.”

Vera wrote, “The Court rejects Defendants’ baseless accusations that Plaintiffs themselves participated in violent riots.” Indeed, they failed to present “a shred of evidence that any Plaintiff engaged in violence.”

Vera also banned the firing of “kinetic impact projectiles or flash-bang grenades at identified targets, if doing so could foreseeably result in injury to the press, legal observers, or protesters who are not posing a threat of imminent harm to a law enforcement officer or another person.”

We will see how this holds up, both in the courts and on the street.

The case is on file with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.