Police detained CNN National Correspondent Jason Carroll live on air during his coverage of the Los Angeles immigration protests on Monday night.
While reporting on the unrest—which has raged for days as President Trump sent thousands of National Guard troops and even Marines to quell the protests—host Laura Coates quickly crossed back to Carroll, who was talking to LAPD officers.
“I am being detained,” Carroll said. “I’m being detained, Laura.” He could be heard asking police: “I’m not being arrested, correct, officers?”
Carroll later told the network that he had identified himself as a journalist from CNN.
“I turned around, I put my, I had my hands behind my back,” Carroll said of being detained.
“They did not put me in zip ties, but they did grab both my hands as I was escorted over to the side,” he added. “They said: ‘You are being detained while we lead you out of this area, you are not allowed to be in this area.’”
The seasoned reporter said he was surprised at the police action.
“You take a lot of risks as press. This is low on that sort of scale of risks. But it is it is something that I wasn‘t expecting, simply because we’ve been out here all day,” Carroll said. “We have covered any number of protests, and normally the officers... realize that the press is there doing a job, so to speak.
“It did not last long,” Carroll said. “Felt a lot, a little longer than what it was.”
CNN later reported that two security personnel working for the network were also briefly detained before being released without charge.
LAPD told The Daily Beast on Monday night: “At this time, it is a fluid situation and we do not have information to provide.”
CNN has been approached for comment.
Carroll isn‘t the only journalist to have a run-in with law enforcement while covering the protests in L.A. Lauren Tomasi, a U.S. correspondent with 9 News Australia, was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet as she reported live on air on Sunday night. British photojournalist Nick Stern also needed emergency surgery after he was similarly shot with a plastic bullet while covering the clashes.
