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A British photographer on assignment to cover the Los Angeles riots filmed the moment he was shot in the head with a rubber bullet.
Toby Canham, a dad of two, screamed: ”F***, f***, I just got shot in the head,’ before falling to the ground.
Less than six months after wildfires tore apart the City of Angels, the city is burning again as protests against the detention of illegal immigrants throughout the community have boiled over into outright violence.
President Donald Trump has sent 2,000 troops to quell the disorder, even as the state governor blamed him for ‘inflaming tensions’, saying things were under control until he intervened.
But innocent bystanders, such as Canham, who was on assignment for the New York Post, are caught in the middle.
Canham said: ‘When I got whacked, to my best recollection, it was just me filming with my cameras on and then I got shot.
‘Where I was hit, I was the only person overlooking the freeway. I wasn’t surrounded, so I was an easy target.’
Toby was left with a gaping forehead wound, which has since been treated, but he isn’t the only one who’s been injured.
Good Morning Britain star Noel Phillips was shot with a rubber bullet just before presenting from the LA protests.
The North America Correspondent for the ITV show revealed on air this morning that just before he came onto air on Monday morning, he was shot by police.
Dozens of people have been arrested as protests grow daily – today is the fifth day of demonstrations.
Police have set off flash-bang grenades, used tear gas and shot rubber bullets into the crowds.
It has now been reported that other Democratic cities, including New York, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Northern Virginia, will be targeted in new raids.
California Governor Gavin Newsom teared up as he issued a warning yesterday: ‘Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes; this moment we have feared has arrived.’
The other cities on the target list are known sanctuary cities, where local laws often protect undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Trump views these as illegal, and previously said he’d withhold federal funding from them.
He’s also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a major federal law which allows him to arrest protesters, whom he calls ‘insurrectionists’, en masse.
The act was not, however, invoked during the January 6th riots, where insurrectionists broke into the nation’s capital.
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