British photographer injured by ‘plastic bullet’

A British news photographer has undergone emergency surgery after being hit by a non-lethal bullet while documenting the stand-off between police and protesters in the US city of 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.

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

Demonstrations against immigration raids have been raging in LA for three days, with protests on Sunday erupting outside a Home Depot store in Paramount, south of LA.

Stern, originally from Hertfordshire before relocating to the US in 2007, said he had been standing in the middle of the road all day taking photos when at 21:00 local time he was struck by a bullet.

“I suddenly got this terrific pain on my leg,” he told the BBC’s Three Counties Radio.

“I tried hobbling away [but] I couldn’t put any weight on my leg.”

He said that up to eight protesters rushed up to him to carry him away from the “danger area” before a medic cut his trousers off, put a pressure pad on the wound and tied a tourniquet.

“From the moment I was hit I felt incredibly faint.”

He is now recovering at Long Beach Memorial Medical Centre following emergency surgery to remove the bullet from his leg.

Stern has a long history of covering protests and riots around the world and said he typically makes a point of being “very deliberate and very obvious”.

“I was out there wearing a press card around my neck, a big camera around my neck as well,” he told the BBC.

Despite his injury, Stern said he was eager to return to work.

“I intend, as soon as I am well enough, to get back out there,” he said.

“This is too important and it needs documenting.”

An Australian journalist, Lauren Tomasi, was also struck by a non-lethal round, shot by a police officer, while filming a piece to camera in LA for 9 News.

Since his return to the White House, US President Donald Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Arrests made by ICE officers have increased during Trump’s second term.

Trump said he had deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to California to deal with the unrest over the immigration raids, saying the federal government would “step in and solve the problem”.

But the Democratic governor of California has appealed to Trump to pull National Guard units out of the city, accusing the White House of inflaming tensions.

Stern said: “The communities in LA are very tight and very close-knit.

“So an outside organisation like ICE coming in and removing – whatever you want to call it, removing, kidnapping, abducting people from the community – is not going to go down well at all.”

Stern said he had also sustained injuries after being hit by non-lethal rounds while covering protests in LA in 2020 in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.

George Floyd – an unarmed Black man – was killed during an arrest by white police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020. Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years in jail for his murder.