L.A. Moves to Pause Court-Ordered Protections for Journalists Ahead of Saturday’s “No Kings” 2.0 Protest
by Nick Valencia | October 16, 2025
LOS ANGELES— With a large “No Kings” protest expected across the country on Saturday, the City of Los Angeles has asked a federal judge to stay his September 10 preliminary injunction that expanded protections for journalists covering protests—arguing the order is unworkable on the street, oversteps the court’s authority, and exposes officers to contempt for “good-faith” efforts to preserve public safety.
According to the filing late Wednesday, the city says the injunction “imposes ambiguous mandates that create serious operational uncertainty and a substantial risk of contempt for good-faith conduct to preserve public safety,” and should be put on hold while the Ninth Circuit reviews it.
What’s new
The ask from the City of LA is to put the entire injunction on ice pending appeal. The city noticed its appeal on Oct. 7 and now seeks immediate relief before Saturday’s protest.
The order currently bars LAPD from a range of actions against “any journalist covering a protest in Los Angeles,” and requires affirmative steps like department-wide notifications, incorporating the injunction into manuals and training, re-issuing protest policies annually, and assigning a lieutenant-level “press liaison” at every protest.
The filing cites “urgency” because LAPD must deploy under the injunction’s constraints at the Oct. 18 demonstration.
Why it matters
The heart of the fight is familiar and unresolved in American street reporting: who counts as “press,” what access they have inside restricted zones, and how police may use force around them without chilling newsgathering.
Judge Vera’s order attempted to set bright lines. The city’s move—if granted—would dim those lines just as a high-profile protest hits the streets.
Judge Vera’s Sept. 10 order, which the city says “mirrors” parts of LAPD policy but adds enforceable mandates, broadly barred LAPD from detaining journalists for failure to disperse, from obstructing or interfering with newsgathering, and from using less-lethal munitions or chemical agents on journalists who aren’t posing an imminent threat. It also required department-wide notice, policy incorporation, annual reissuance, and on-scene command liaisons for press coordination.
Judge Vera can grant or deny the stay. If he denies, the city says it will ask the Ninth Circuit for emergency relief. Either way, unless a stay issues quickly, LAPD will be operating under the injunction’s terms at the Oct. 18 protest—testing, in real time, the very standards the city calls “impossible to implement with certainty.”