A federal agent allegedly injured this unnamed protester during a protest, causing him permanent blindness in one eye. | Photo courtesy of daretostruggle_socal\/Instagram<\/p>\n
Two protesters were blinded from nonlethal rounds fired at close range by one or more U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers during a confrontation, a social justice group and local media reported last week.<\/p>\n
Members of the social justice group Dare to Struggle were among the protesters Jan. 9 outside the Federal Building in Santa Ana in response to the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an enforcement action in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
A group member read a statement from one of the injured protesters Jan. 13 outside the Santa Ana City Jail that said he was chanting with a small group when officers advanced with weapons drawn, the Orange County Register reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n The man, who the Los Angeles Times identified as 21-year-old Kaden Rummler, described in the statement being struck from a short distance, collapsing to the ground and an officer dragging him.<\/p>\n \u201cThe next thing I saw was a DHS agent only a few feet away from me, his weaponry pointed straight at me,\u201d according to the statement.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard a bang, and suddenly I was on my knees. It hadn\u2019t dawned on my what happened. Everything was a blur. Sounds became muffles. The only thing I could focus on was the ringing and pressure around my skull. I couldn\u2019t breathe. I thought this was the end.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought I was going to bleed out on the floor of the Federal Building with a DHS agent holding my head down to the ground like a trophy.\u201d<\/p>\n Medical personnel told Rummler that sight in his left eye was permanently lost.<\/p>\n \u201cThe doctors performed extensive surgery once and have said they could not get all the shrapnel out of my skull, and I will have to live with metal pieces there for the rest of my life,\u201d according to Rummler\u2019s statement. \u201cAt this point, I\u2019m just glad I\u2019m alive to tell my story. I\u2019m fully convinced the DHS agent who shot and dragged me away had every intent to kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n A plastic fragment about the size of a nickel was removed, and additional debris, including metal and glass, was found in his skull, the statement said. Doctors also found shards in the stomach but could not extract all the material.<\/p>\n Another protester, Orange County resident Britain Rodriguez, 31, said he was standing at the bottom of some steps with other protesters when federal agents<\/a> above opened fire at them, hitting him in the face.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI remember hitting the ground and feeling like my eye exploded in my head,\u201d he told the Times.<\/p>\n In a video his girlfriend shared with the newspaper, Rodriguez is seen on the ground, holding his face as he screams from intense pain before demonstrators escorted him away.<\/p>\n Unable to work or drive, Rodriguez doesn\u2019t know how much of his vision, if any, he\u2019ll be able to get back, the Times reported. He said doctors told him he will need surgery to remove the cataract before they can determine that.<\/p>\n Rodriguez is a visual artist and also works at an after-school program in Orange County and supervises elementary school students. He said he drives a school van that takes students home or to their stops. Now, however, he may not be able to do that, and his eye injury has hindered his art work, he said.<\/p>\n