US federal forces blind two protesters shot in face with ‘less-lethal’ munitions

Two protesters have been blinded by so-called “less-lethal” munitions deployed by federal officers during an anti-ICE protest last week in Santa Ana, California, according to reports.The blindings come amid rising scrutiny of federal authorities’ use-of-force policies, after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer set off nationwide protests.Widely seen video recorded at the Santa Ana protest showed a homeland security agent shoot Kaden Rummler, 21, in the face with a less-lethal munition at a distance of only a few feet. Doctors found glass shards and plastic fragments in his skull and a fragment of metal lodged just shy of his carotid artery.Video also showed the federal officer drag Rummler several yards across the pavement and into a federal building after shooting him. The shooting left him blind in his left eye.“I can’t sneeze or cough because it’s dangerous,” Rummler told KTLA. “They pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel out of my eye.”“They said it was a miracle I survived,” he added.Rummler is 5ft 1in tall and weighs 102lbs, he said.A second person, 31-year-old Britain Rodriguez, described taking a similar close-range shot to the face with a less-lethal round at the same protest, saying it felt like his “eye exploded in my head”, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published on Friday.The shooting appeared to take place at roughly the same time as the one that blinded Rummler.Homeland security use-of-force policies describe “uses 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 about the Santa Ana incidents.But a DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, has described the protesters as a “a mob”, accusing them of throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at federal officers. Local police and media reports, however, said protesters threw only traffic cones. There is no evidence of anything being thrown at officers in the video of Rummler being shot.About 150 people gathered last week for a procession and vigil honoring Rene Good at which the shootings took place. The event culminated with a demonstration in front of a federal building used by ICE.Orange county supervisor Vicente Sarmiento described the event as “very peaceful”. Attendees included local elected officials and “many parents with strollers”, he said.A handful of homeland security officers stood at the top of the steps to the federal building during the protest. When protesters moved closer to them, the officers confronted them, according to Sarmiento. Videos of the shooting that blinded Rummler show him approaching the officers with a bullhorn after they grabbed another protester and dragged them up the stairs to detain them.“I feel just outraged that some of our federal delegation and others are considering continuing to fund these federal agencies that have now gone rogue and are no longer protecting us, but are putting people in critical harm – killing people and maiming people,” Sarmiento said. “I’m just really, really distressed.”Crowd control is not a typical function for homeland security. It is not clear why the federal officer chose to engage with protesters who were not the target of immigration enforcement and who appeared to be demonstrating on public property, outside the federal building.Arizona State University criminologist Edward Maguire, who has studied crowd control, did not observe the Santa Ana protest, but said he had noted recent DHS actions elsewhere “appear inconsistent with basic principles of crowd management and de-escalation”.“Decades of research show that when law enforcement responds to crowds and protests in this way, it tends to escalate tension and conflict and increases the risk of harm to both officers and civilians,” Maguire wrote in an email.