An 18-year-old college freshman was blinded in his right eye by a federal agent during the Los Angeles “No Kings” protest on March 28.
Tucker Collins, who is studying astronautical engineering with a minor in cinematic arts at the University of Southern California, was documenting the rally protesting policies implemented under President Donald Trump near the Metropolitan Detention Center, where immigration detainees are held. Video of the incident shared by Collins’ attorney, V. James DeSimone, shows a crowd of people separated from agents by a tall black fence surrounding the facility. Collins can be seen holding his phone and filming near the back of the group before abruptly falling to the ground. Blood streams from his right eye as bystanders come to his aid. He was helped by a nurse present at the protest, DeSimone told CNN, and later taken to the hospital.
In the video, DeSimone accuses Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents of unlawfully shooting Collins with “a less-lethal launcher…shooting directly into his head” while exercising his First Amendment rights. The strike caused irreparable damage to Collins’ eye and fractured bones in his eye socket, DeSimone told CNN. Collins’ eye had to be surgically removed.
In a statement made to the Los Angeles Times, a DHS spokesperson claimed that agents “followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property” after a group of 1,000 protestors “threw rocks, bottles, and cement blocks at officers.” The agency said seven warnings were given before crowd control measures were used. “The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly—not rioting,” the spokesperson continued.
Under DHS use-of-force guidelines, while agents may be authorized to use less-lethal weapons, such as pepperballs and rubber bullets, using such a device is considered deadly force when “it carries a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily injury,” such as “strik[ing] the neck or head.” Deadly force is only permissible when “the [officer] has a reasonable belief that the subject of force poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the [officer] or to another person.”
Even with this guideline in place, a federal court in California issued a preliminary injunction last September prohibiting DHS agents from, in part, “using crowd control weapons,” including less-lethal weapons, “on members of the press, legal observers, and protesters who are not themselves posing a threat of imminent harm to a law enforcement officer or another person.” The order was a result of a lawsuit in which DHS agents were accused of using excessive force and suppressing First Amendment-protected activities when officers shot less-lethal weapons at people protesting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics in Southern California last summer.
In this case, Collins “was not threatening anyone. He wasn’t attacking anyone,” DeSimone told The Guardian. “DHS officers took out his eye and they did it despite a federal injunction that plainly forbids firing these weapons at people’s heads,” he continued.
Others have been similarly struck and blinded by these types of weapons. In January, a 21-year-old protester in Santa Ana, California, was left permanently blind in one eye after a DHS officer shot him in the face with a less-lethal weapon. And a 23-year-old lost sight in one eye and may lose sight in his other eye after a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer allegedly shot him with a less-lethal weapon while he observed a protest in March. Outside of Southern California, the DHS has also been accused of using excessive force against protesters, including in Chicago and Minneapolis.
DeSimone told CNN he plans to file under the Federal Tort Claims Act on Collins’ behalf. But even if he is able to successfully hold the unidentified DHS agent accountable in court for his reckless actions, a notoriously difficult thing to do, Collins’ life has been permanently altered, highlighting the need to ensure law enforcement uses an appropriate amount of force before shooting someone’s eye out.
Although considered less-lethal, many crowd control devices are powerful and can have serious, life-altering effects on individuals who are struck either intentionally or accidentally. “They may have a green stock barrel, but they’re 12-gauge shotguns that file at a range of over 200 mph,” DeSimone told the Los Angeles Times. “With that amount of force, we’ve got people with broken jaws and broken skulls. It’s heartbreaking.”
