COPS have detained a CNN reporter live on-air as he covered the tense Los Angeles protests.
Anchor Laura Coates yelled out, “What’s going on?” after watching national correspondent Jason Carroll being led away with his hands behind his back.
Carroll was reporting on the fourth day of demonstrations against Donald Trump’s strict actions on illegal immigration when he unexpectedly lost contact with Coates on Thursday night.
“Jason? What’s going on? I hear you. What happened Jason?” Coates said live on air.
“I am being detained,” said Carroll in the distance as his cameraman filmed several feet behind him.
Carroll then chatted with the cops, who confirmed that he wasn’t being arrested.
“We’re letting you go, but you can’t come back,” said the officer before threatening to arrest Carroll if he returned to the scene.
The two appeared to have a friendly interaction before Carroll was put behind a wall of cops and lost touch with Coates.
Later, Carroll explained that the officers didn’t put him in zip ties but did grab both of his hands and told him, “you are being detained.”
The reporter was stunned by the sudden change as he had been roaming the streets of Los Angeles covering the protests since that morning.
“It is something that I wasn’t expecting simply because we have been out here all day,” he said.
“Normally, the officers […] realize the press is there doing a job.”
Carroll was led away around the same time that officials told demonstrators that they had to leave or else they would be arrested.
They cuffed a number of protesters and charged them with failure to disperse to finally break up Thursday’s demonstration.
PROTESTS RAGE ON
The demonstrations, which began over the weekend, intensified when Trump deployed about 2,000 National Guard members to maintain order, even though California Governor Gavin Newsom cautioned him to refrain from doing so.
Newsom claims that the peaceful protests criticizing Trump’s immigration crackdown turned into a protest once the troops arrived.
In the meantime, Trump claims that Los Angeles would have been reduced to ashes if he hadn’t dispatched the troops, as he intends to deploy 700 Marines to the area.
“If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday morning.
California has filed a lawsuit against Trump, accusing him of breaking the 10th Amendment when he sent in the guard.
The protests have spawned more protests across the country, and hundreds of participants have been arrested.
Trump has vowed to maintain law and order despite Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass begging him to pause the ICE raids.
“There is a real fear in Los Angeles right now. Parents, workers, grandparents, young people scared to go about their daily lives,” she said.
“We are a city of immigrants. Washington is attacking our people, our neighborhoods and our economy.”
