Protester permanently blinded after DHS agent fires nonlethal round at close range

A young protester in Santa Ana is permanently blind in one eye after being hit in the face at close range by a “nonlethal” round fired by a Department of Homeland Security agent last week amid nationwide protests against an immigration agent’s killing of US citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis.

According to a report from the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, the 21-year-old “underwent six hours of surgery and... doctors found shards of plastic, glass, and metal embedded in his eyes and around his face, including a metal piece lodged 7 mm from a carotid artery.”

His aunt, Jeri Rees, told the Times that doctors feared removing the shrapnel from her nephew’s face, concerned it could kill him, and that he had also suffered a skull fracture around his eyes and nose and had permanently lost vision in his left eye.

The shooting outside the Civic Center Plaza that took his sight on Friday evening was caught on film and has circulated widely on social media, and came hours after an earlier protest, organized by the organization Dare to Struggle, saw hundreds of demonstrators gather in downtown Santa Ana to oppose President Donald Trump’s flooding of US cities with immigration agents.

The video shows a group of protesters standing on the steps of the center, with several chanting and holding signs and one holding a megaphone. An officer then grabbed one of the young demonstrators—who appeared to be standing peacefully—by the arm, and dragged him up the steps.

As he attempted to wrest himself free from the agent’s grip, one of the protesters in the crowd threw an orange traffic cone in the direction of the struggle. This prompted at least one other officer to begin firing their weapons toward the crowd, striking one woman before striking Rees’ nephew in the face, causing him to drop to the ground.

The agent then grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt, dragging him across the ground. His face is visibly bloody and he appears to be struggling to breathe as he is dragged away by the neck.

According to the Times, another video shows Rees’ nephew lying bloodied on the ground inside the building while another agent fires pepper balls at another person who approached the building, attempting to film the incident.

While such projectiles are often described as “nonlethal,” Ed Obayashi, the Modoc County sheriff’s deputy and legal adviser to police agencies, told the paper that firing one just feet away from a person’s face “constitutes as deadly force as far as the law is concerned” because “these projectiles can cause serious injury [or] death.”

He added that officers are only supposed to deploy deadly force in situations where they believe their lives are in imminent danger or that they are at risk of grave bodily harm.

Rees said that her nephew told her agents pressed his face into the pool of blood and did not immediately call paramedics. She said her nephew also told her that “the other officers were mocking him, saying, ‘You’re going to lose your eye.’”

“This is an egregious abuse of power,” said Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.). “Americans have the right to protest without fear of retaliation or worse. Trump’s violence must stop now.”