Friday, 24 July 2020 _“I thought my head was blown off,” said Matthews, 22, who was hit in the eye with a sponge-tipped projectile fired by law enforcement at a protest in Denver May 29. “Everything was dark. I couldn’t see.”
Matthews, a soft-spoken art major who lives with her mother, had gone to the demonstration against police brutality carrying bandages, water bottles and milk so she could provide first aid to protesters.
“I couldn’t really grasp how bad my injury was,” said Matthews, who had a broken nose, fractured facial bones and multiple lacerations on her face. “So much blood was pouring out. I was wearing a mask, and the whole mask was filling up with blood. I was trying to breathe through it. I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t stop breathing.’”
Three weeks later, Matthew is struggling with her vision, and her doctor says she may never completely heal. Others fared far worse.
In a joint investigation into law enforcement actions at protests across the country after George Floyd’s death in police custody, Kaiser Health News and USA TODAY found that some officers appear to have violated their department’s own rules when they fired "less lethal" projectiles at protesters who were for the most part peacefully assembled.
Critics have assailed those tactics as civil rights and First Amendment violations, and four federal judges have ordered temporary restrictions on their use.
At least 60 protesters sustained serious head injuries, including a broken jaw, traumatic brain injuries and blindness, based on news reports, interviews with victims and witnesses and a list compiled by Scott Reynhout, a Los Angeles researcher.
Photos and videos posted on social media show protesters with large bruises or deep gashes on the throat, hands, arms, legs, chest, rib cage and stomach, all caused by what law enforcement calls “kinetic impact projectiles” and bystanders call “rubber bullets.”
At least 20 people have suffered severe eye injuries, including seven people who lost an eye, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Photographer Linda Tirado, 37, lost an eye after being hit by a foam projectile in Minneapolis. Brandon Saenz, 26, lost an eye and several teeth after being hit with a “sponge round” in Dallas. Leslie Furcron, 59, was placed in a medically induced coma after she was shot between the eyes with a “bean bag” round in La Mesa, California.
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