US federal forces blind two protesters shot in face with ‘less-lethal’ munitions | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
According to reports, two protesters were blinded by “less lethal” munitions distributed by federal officers during an anti-ICE protest in Santa Ana, California, last week.
The blindings come amid increased scrutiny of federal authorities’ use-of-force policies after the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests.
Widely viewed video recorded at Santa Ana protest showed A Homeland Security agent shot and killed 21-year-old Kaden Rummler from just a few feet away with less-lethal ammunition. Doctors found shards of glass and plastic in his skull and a piece of metal lodged just short of his carotid artery.
The video also shows the federal officer shooting Rummler and then dragging him several feet on the sidewalk toward a federal building. The shooting caused him to go blind in his left eye.
“I can’t sneeze or cough because it’s dangerous” Rummler told KTLA. “They removed a piece of plastic the size of a nickel from my eye.”
“They said it was a miracle I survived,” he added.
He said Rummler was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 102 lbs.
A second man, 31-year-old Briton Rodriguez, said in an interview that he fired a less-lethal shot at the same protest at a similar point-blank range into the face, saying he felt his “eye exploded in my head.” via Los Angeles Times It was published on Friday.
The shooting appeared to have occurred around the same time as the incident that blinded Rummler.
homeland security use of force policies “The use of impact weapons to strike the neck or head” as a form of “deadly force.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on the Santa Ana incidents.
But DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin described the protesters as a “mob” and accused them of throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at federal officers. local police and media reportsBut he said protesters were only throwing traffic cones. There is no evidence in the video of Rummler being shot that anything was thrown at the officers.
Last week, about 150 people gathered for the Rene Good memorial and parade at the scene of the shootings. The event ended with a demonstration in front of a federal building used by ICE.
Orange county supervisor Vicente Sarmiento described the incident as “very peaceful.” Attendees included local elected officials and “many parents with strollers,” he said.
A handful of homeland security guards stood at the top of the steps of the federal building during the protest. When protesters approached them, officers confronted them, according to Sarmiento. In videos of the shooting that blinded Rummler, Rummler can be seen approaching officers with a megaphone as he grabbed another protester, dragged him up the stairs and detained him.
“I am outraged that some of our federal delegations and others are considering continuing to fund these federal agencies that are now cheating and no longer protecting us, putting people in serious harm, killing and maiming people,” Sarmiento said. “I’m really, really distressed.”
Crowd control is not a typical function for national security. It is unclear why the federal officer chose to engage with protesters who were not targets of immigration enforcement and appeared to be demonstrating on public property outside the federal building.
Edward Maguire, an Arizona State University criminologist who studies crowd control, did not observe the Santa Ana protest, but said recent DHS actions elsewhere “seem inconsistent with basic principles of crowd management and de-escalation.”
“Decades of research show that this way of responding to crowds and protests by law enforcement tends to increase tensions and conflict and increases the risk of harm to both officers and civilians,” Maguire wrote in an email.
