Tucker Collins is 18 years old. A freshman at USC. He went to the No Kings rally in Los Angeles on March 28 with a camera because he loves photography and wanted to document history. He came home without an eye.
A DHS agent fired a “less-lethal” projectile that hit Tucker in the face, destroying his eyeball and fracturing the bones around his eye socket. He was taken to the side of the protest and given an eye patch. A nurse who happened to be driving by stopped and took him to the hospital.
He didn’t throw anything. He wasn’t in the front of a crowd. He was taking pictures. His attorney said, “Instead of targeting people who were throwing things into the crowd, they were targeting someone who was documenting and taking photos.”
Federal courts had already issued injunctions specifically banning DHS agents from targeting the head, neck, and torso with these weapons. Tucker’s attorney said the shot that took his eye violated that order.
DHS’s response? They called the protesters rioters and said seven warnings were issued. They said nothing about Tucker specifically. Nothing about an 18-year-old who lost his eye.
This isn’t an isolated incident. This may be the fourth person to lose an eye to a DHS agent. His firm alone has represented 15 people injured by federal agents at protests since last June including a 79-year-old man who was slammed to the ground and suffered a brain bleed.
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