LA teen loses eye after being shot by US agent at No Kings march, lawyer says | Los Angeles
A University of Southern California freshman lost an eye after being shot last month by a “less-lethal” projectile by a Department of Homeland Security agent during a No Kings march, according to his attorney.
On March 28, Tucker Collins, 18, took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles to photograph crowds of protesters, who held signs and chanted slogans denouncing the policies of the Trump administration, his lawyer V James DeSimone said in a statement Wednesday.
Collins followed a group heading toward the Metropolitan Detention Center, the downtown Los Angeles facility that has been a focal point for protesters in recent months.
In a video from that day shared by DeSimone on social media, Collins is seen holding a camera pointed at protesters outside the federal facility, when suddenly he falls to his knees.
A projectile, typically used as a crowd control device, had struck Collins in the right eye, fracturing his eye socket bones, according to DeSimone. That eye has since been surgically removed.
“He wasn’t threatening anyone. He wasn’t attacking anyone. DHS agents gouged out his eye and they did it despite a federal injunction that clearly prohibits shooting these weapons at people’s heads,” DeSimone said.
In September, a California judge issued an order limiting DHS’s use of force against journalists and legal observers exercising their First Amendment rights, who posed “no threat of imminent harm.”
“They didn’t shoot him for their own protection – Tucker was shot as another overt act of repression,” DeSimone said.
DeSimone will file a federal tort action against DHS on Collins’ behalf, a legal remedy for injuries caused by the “wrongful or negligent act” of a federal employee.
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement to the Guardian: “The First Amendment protects peaceful speech and assembly – not rioting.
“Our law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum force necessary to protect themselves, protect the public, and protect federal property,” they wrote, adding that seven warnings were given before crowd control measures were deployed.
DeSimone said the video showed Collins “at the back of the crowd, obviously documenting the scene, even moving out of the way of bystanders.”
Photographs from March 28 show police used tear gas on a crowd of about 150 people near the Metropolitan Detention Center. Authorities said the movement was precipitated by protesters throwing concrete blocks, among other objects.
Dozens of protesters were arrested that day for failing to comply with dispersal orders, according to Los Angeles police.
Earlier this year, a 23-year-old Los Angeles man sued the LAPD for excessive force, assault and battery, among other allegations, after he was shot and blinded in one eye by a projectile during an anti-immigration protest.
During another round of No Kings protests in downtown Los Angeles in the fall, an LAPD officer fired a “crowd control projectile” at an investigative reporter from news outlet LA Taco, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker. The projectile did not hit the journalist, but he was injured dodging it, according to the database.
