A Los Angeles woman says a downtown immigration protest turned into a painful ordeal when she was struck twice by law-enforcement projectiles, and she is now taking the city, county and state to court over it.
Jill Snyder’s lawsuit, filed July 10, 2026, in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges she was hit by so-called less-lethal rounds during the June 2025 demonstrations and left with serious injuries, including significant bruising, an infected leg and ongoing nerve damage.
According to MyNewsLA, Snyder says the first impact came around 5:45 p.m. on June 8, 2025, near Temple and Alameda streets as she moved to help another demonstrator. An hour or two later, she alleges, a second projectile slammed into her leg while she was again assisting someone else in the crowd.
The suit brings negligence-based claims and civil-rights counts, accuses authorities of assault and battery, names several unidentified “Doe” defendants to be filled in as the case unfolds, and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Authorities’ Crowd-Control Tactics Under the Microscope
During those days of unrest, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol were all deployed downtown and used “less-lethal” munitions for crowd control.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s AB-48 transparency log notes a reportable incident on June 8 in the area of Spring Street and Temple Street. LAPD public statements from that week described Mobile Field Force deployments amid what officials labeled “hostile and riotous” conditions.
Human Rights Watch and other observers later documented what they characterized as excessive or indiscriminate firing of crowd-control projectiles that injured bystanders and members of the press.
Court Rulings and Health Probes Pile Up
The tactics on display during those nights have already landed in courtrooms and public-health reports. In July 2025, a federal judge issued a temporary order that restricted the LAPD’s use of rubber projectiles against journalists after video and testimony showed reporters and bystanders being struck during the demonstrations, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
A visual investigation by Physicians for Human Rights concluded that some of the crowd-control weapons used during the immigration protests caused severe health harms and underscored a lack of accountability for those deployments.
What Snyder Says She Endured, And What She Wants
Snyder’s complaint describes “excruciating and prolonged” pain after both strikes, along with significant bruising and swelling. She says the leg wound developed an infection that left her with persistent nerve damage and visible scarring.
As reported by MyNewsLA, the lawsuit does not specify which agency fired the projectiles in either incident. Snyder’s attorneys say they expect to identify individual officers as discovery moves forward and more records emerge.
Her filing joins a growing list of complaints, media lawsuits and independent investigations stemming from the June 2025 demonstrations, all of which have kept police crowd-control practices under a bright, uncomfortable spotlight. As Snyder’s case winds through Los Angeles Superior Court, it is likely to sit alongside other litigation and oversight reviews that have already sparked court orders and public debate about how and when less-lethal weapons should be used in large demonstrations, as documented by local press and rights groups.
