US federal forces blind two protesters hit in the face with ‘less lethal’ munitions | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Two protesters were blinded by so-called “less-lethal” munitions deployed by federal agents during an anti-ICE protest last week in Santa Ana, California, according to reports.

The blindsides come amid growing scrutiny of federal authorities’ use-of-force policies, after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent sparked nationwide protests.

A widely circulated video recorded at the Santa Ana protest showed a Homeland Security agent shooting Kaden Rummler, 21, in the face with a less-lethal munition from just a few feet away. Doctors found shards of glass and plastic fragments in his skull, as well as a metal fragment lodged right next to his carotid artery.

The video also shows the federal officer dragging Rummler several feet down the sidewalk 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 took a piece of plastic the size of a nickel out of my eye.”

“They said it was a miracle that I survived,” he added.

Rummler is 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 102 pounds, he said.

A second person, Britain Rodriguez, 31, described being shot similarly at point-blank range in the face with a less-lethal bullet at the same protest, saying it felt like his “eye had exploded in my head,” in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published Friday.

The shooting appears to have occurred around the same time as the shooting that blinded Rummler.

Homeland Security’s use of force policies describe “use 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 on the Santa Ana incidents.

But a DHS spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, described the protesters as a “mob,” accusing them of throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at federal agents. Local police and media, however, reported that protesters only threw traffic cones. There is no evidence that anything was thrown at the officers in the video of Rummler being shot.

About 150 people gathered last week for a procession and vigil honoring René Good during which the shooting took place. The event ended with a protest in front of a federal building used by ICE.

Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento called the event “very peaceful.” Attendees included local officials and “lots of parents with strollers,” he said.

A handful of Homeland Security agents stood at the top of the steps of the federal building during the protest. When the protesters got closer to them, the police confronted them, according to Sarmiento. Videos of the shooting that blinded Rummler show him approaching police with a bullhorn after they grabbed another protester and dragged him down the stairs to arrest him.

“I just feel outraged that some members 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 harm’s way – killing and maiming people,” Sarmiento said. “I’m just really, really distressed.”

Crowd control is not a typical homeland security function. It is not clear why the federal agent chose to address protesters who were not the target of immigration and who appeared to be demonstrating on public property, outside the federal building.

Edward Maguire, a criminologist at Arizona State University who has studied crowd control, did not observe the Santa Ana protest but said he noted that recent DHS actions elsewhere “seem inconsistent with basic principles of crowd management and de-escalation.”

“Decades of research shows that when law enforcement responds to crowds and protests in this way, it tends to escalate tensions and conflict and increases the risk of harm to officers and civilians,” Maguire wrote in an email.