A young protester gripped at the collar of his shirt, a desperate attempt to keep his airway clear as a Department of Homeland Security agent dragged him into a federal building in Santa Ana Friday, according to a statement he released to a social justice organization.
The protester, a 21-year-old who asked to only be identified as K, had been hit by a nonlethal round fired by an agent only feet away. He saw his blood pooling beneath him – “dark and thick,” and wider than his head.
K pleaded with agents to call an ambulance, he said in the statement. Instead, the agents taunted him, “laughing at the fact that I would never get to see out of my left eye again,” he said.
Rue El Amar, a friend of K’s, read the statement on his behalf during a press conference Tuesday, held by Dare to Struggle, a social justice organization that K is involved with, in front of the Santa Ana city jail.
Demonstrators had gathered in front of federal offices in Santa Ana Friday to protest the fatal shooting in Minnesota of Renee Good. K was injured and another protester, Skye Jones, was taken into custody.
Video footage of the incident shows three agents approaching the group before one agent tries to take a young person into custody, prompting at least three demonstrators to try to intervene.
The video then shows at least one agent firing nonlethal rounds at the crowd, before aiming and shooting a protester in the face. K drops to the ground after being shot, holding his face as the crowd retreats.
K remained in the hospital as of Tuesday afternoon, as they await a police report that can identify what type of metal was in the rounds used. His doctors are concerned about neurotoxins from the bullet, he said.
Rue El Amar holds a sign during a press conference about a young protester who was left blind in one eye after a Department of Homeland Security agent fired a less-lethal round at demonstrators.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
“I pleaded with him, call an ambulance,” El Amar read. “I thought I was going to bleed out on the floor of the federal building with the DHS officer holding my head down to the ground like a trophy.”
K is now completely blind in his left eye, his tear duct was destroyed and the “flaps of my eye are barely holding on,” he said. Doctors found pieces of plastic and glass in his skull as well as metal in his stomach lining, and “pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel from my eye,” he said.
A piece of metal is lodged only millimeters from his carotid artery, which could have killed him. Doctors were unable to remove some of the shrapnel from his skull and he “will have to live with metal pieces there for the rest of my life,” he said.
“I focused on the voices of the people, the voices of my friends and comrades, I believe that’s what kept me alive, hearing them continue the fight despite how aggressive our oppressors were,” K said.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security, previously told The Times that a “mob of 60 rioters threw rocks, bottles and fireworks at law enforcement officers outside of the federal building.”
A spokesperson for the Santa Ana Police Department said the only violence they were aware of that night were demonstrators tossing orange cones at the agents.
Connor Atwood, a member of Dare to Struggle who was present during the incident, said he didn’t witness bottles or rocks being thrown toward agents. Some firecrackers were set off near the sidewalk but away from the building entrance, he said.
Jones, who also spoke during the press conference, was arrested during the incident and held for nearly three days until being released yesterday, they said during the press conference. Jones said they weren’t told the charges against them until the morning of their release.
Jones said they hope Friday’s incident makes people “open their eyes” to the violence committed by immigration against against “innocent civilians who are just trying to protect their neighbors and friends,” they said.
“When confronting those who enforce ICE terror, they will snatch us out of a crowd. They will shoot us point blank with pepper ball bullets, and they will throw us to the ground,” Jones said. “Repression is inevitable when demanding justice, so we must not cower at it.”
Staff Writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.