Journalist Jon Fetherston was struck in the head with a skateboard by an individual, and his cellphone damaged, at a Biddeford, Maine, immigration enforcement protest on July 13, 2026.
Protesters gathered in the Portland-area city after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a Colombian motorist earlier that day, with many expressing anger at ICE actions in the state.
Fetherston, a reporter for the Maine Wire — a conservative digital media outlet and project of the nonprofit think tank Maine Policy Institute — told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was livestreaming the protest.
At one point in the livestream, a woman asks the reporter why he’s there, and he responds that he’s covering the event for the Maine Wire. Someone yells, “It’s not media, it’s propaganda.”
Another woman blocks his camera and appears to hit him with a cardboard sign, which he asks her not to do. Then, a man walking with the crowd says, “You’re not a billionaire,” to which the reporter replies, “I don’t think you are either.”
The man then asks Fetherston why he’s there, and the reporter asks him the same question. The man says he’s there to protest, then slams Fetherston with a skateboard, knocking his cellphone to the ground. “Get the fuck out of here,” he says.
The Maine Wire posted a clip of the incident on the social platform X.
“I was struck in the head, and my phone went flying,” Fetherston told the Tracker. “I am fine; just a bump on my head and a headache.”
The man continues to engage with Fetherston, asking, “What do you want?” The reporter responds, “I don’t want anything other than for you not to hit me with your skateboard.”
Another woman is then seen yelling out of her car window, “Fuck the Maine Wire!”
Fetherston said he filed a report with the Biddeford Police Department the next day and asked for charges to be pressed against the individual who hit him. Biddeford police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether charges had been filed against the individual.
The journalist added that he later had the screen on his iPhone replaced using his AppleCare insurance.
Fetherston told the Tracker that he had been subjected to several instances of harassment while covering the protest, which can be seen in the livestream and in social media posts.
He added that while covering a protest outside an ICE facility in nearby Scarborough, Maine, on July 14, someone slashed his car’s tires. He said he filed a police report, and that he believed he was targeted as a member of the media in that incident as well.
Another Maine Wire reporter was shoved while covering a demonstration the previous week, and Fetherston was assaulted at a city council meeting in January.
He said he believed the Maine Wire was targeted because it is a conservative outlet. “In one of the videos, I ask an angry protester, ‘Are you yelling at ABC, NBC and the CBS station? They are all here.’ The answer was no.”
This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.