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 on Friday, according to a statement he released to a social justice organization.
The protester, a 21-year-old Kaden Rummler, had been hit by a less-lethal round fired by an agent only feet away. He said he saw his blood pooling beneath him — “dark and thick,” and wider than his head.
Rummler 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 Rummler, read the statement on his behalf during a news conference Tuesday, held by Dare to Struggle, a social justice organization that Rummler’s involved with, in front of the Santa Ana city jail.
Demonstrators had gathered in front of federal offices in Santa Ana on Friday to protest the fatal shooting last week of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minnesota. Rummler 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 Jones into custody, prompting at least three demonstrators to try to intervene.
The video then shows at least one agent firing less-lethal rounds at the crowd, before aiming and shooting Rummler in the face, who drops to the ground, holding his face as the crowd retreats.
Rummler 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 Tuesday’s news conference.
(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.”
Rummler is now blind in his left eye, his tear duct has been 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, a major blood vessel in the neck. 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,” Rummler said. “I believe that’s what kept me alive, hearing them continue the fight despite how aggressive our oppressors were.”
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.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the department said in a statement: “This is absurd. DHS law enforcement took this rioter to the hospital for a cut and he was released that night. … Make no mistake: Rioting and assaulting law enforcement is not only dangerous but a crime.”
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 federal 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 at agents. Some firecrackers were set off near the sidewalk, but away from the building entrance, he said.
Jones, who also spoke during the news conference, was arrested during the incident and held for nearly three days until being released Monday, they said during the news 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 federal agents 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.”
Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.