‘I Just Got Hit!’ CNN Reporter Chokes Live On Camera As Trump ICE Agents Fire Irritants At Protesters

 

CNN correspondent Veronica Miracle began coughing and choking live on camera when Trump ICE agents fired pepper balls into a crowd of protesters at an ICE facility in Los Angeles.

On Friday night’s edition of CNN’s OutFront, anchor Erin Burnett tossed to Miracle as she reported from LA amid protests across the country against Trump’s deportation forces.

When ICE fired on the crowd, Miracle exclaimed “I just got hit!” and choked on the chemical irritant for a considerable stretch — then kept reporting:

BURNETT: I want to go straight to Veronica Miracle because she is there on the ground in L.A., where the crowd that I know that is around you, Veronica, is on ICE property. What are you seeing?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it’s really intense here. And, Erin, I just — we just all got pepper sprayed. And so I’m just still recovering from that. There’s so much of the pepper spray still in the air and so, so many people around us coughing and gagging, including us.

So, it’s been a really interesting scene here. I’ve never seen this before in all of my years covering protests here in this area, here in downtown L.A., where they were actually, these protesters were able to get onto the property. There was a skirmish line of police officers of Department of Homeland Security officers. They were in a bit of a line, and the protesters overtook them and were able to basically push them further and further back all the way to the loading dock, where they essentially cornered all of them and pushed them back inside.

There was, you know, a bit of a skirmish. There were some pepper spray, people were throwing bottles, but ultimately these protesters have overtaken this property, which I have never seen before. Usually, police are here and they’re able to keep protesters off of the property.

This is a crowd that is kind of at the tail end of a very long protest. This started at 1:00 p.m. local over in city hall. Okay, I just got hit! Hold on, hold on. I just got — sorry.

BURNETT: All right, take your time there, Veronica.

MIRACLE: Sorry. I can’t breathe. I’m sorry.

BURNETT: Take your time. Take your time. Right. Let’s just make sure Veronica’s okay.

MIRACLE: Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah.

UNIDNETIFIED MALE; Let’s go back.

MIRACLE: All right. So obviously, they’re — they’re shooting. They’re shooting something. Pepper balls or something. So, it looks like you can see an officer back there. He’s alone, and they’re just throwing things at him.

I mean, it’s just pretty incredible that these protesters have overtaken this. And there’s really. There’s no police.

I don’t see anybody here to kind of manage this crowd. So like I was saying, this is at the tail end of a very long day. It looks like they’re — they’re cheering because they were able to push that officer back inside. Okay.

Watch above via CNN’s OutFront.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!

Tags: