Linda Tirado: Photographer Blinded in One Eye at Minneapolis Protest

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Originally published 2020-06-02.

Linda Tirado, a freelance photographer and author, lost the sight in her left eye after being hit in the face by a police projectile while covering protests in Minneapolis on 29 May 2020, four days after the murder of George Floyd. She first believed it was a rubber bullet; later reporting described it as a foam or sponge round. Her injury became one of the best-known cases in an extraordinary wave of attacks on the press: the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker recorded nearly 500 assaults on journalists and more than 100 arrests or detentions in the three months after Floyd's death, most of them by law enforcement. In 2022 Minneapolis agreed to pay Tirado $600,000.

A Journalist's Eye Injury During US Protests in 2020

How Linda Tirado was injured

Tirado had travelled from Nashville to photograph the demonstrations. She had been wearing protective goggles but, by her account to The New York Times, lost them while moving away from clouds of tear gas. Moments later, as she lowered her camera between shots, she was hit just below the left eye. She told the paper she immediately felt blood and began shouting "I'm press! I'm press!"

Protesters helped her to safety and she was taken into surgery. Before the operation she posted a brief update on Twitter, joking about not tweeting while on morphine.

Surgeons were unable to save the vision in that eye. Tirado said afterwards that it should have been obvious she was a working journalist: she was carrying professional cameras and was clearly photographing, not protesting. Remarkably, she was back at work within days, now photographing with her remaining eye.

Who she is

Tirado was already known before 2020. A comment she posted online in 2013 about life on a low income went viral and grew into her book Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, a frank account of working poverty in the United States. The BBC named her one of its 100 Women in 2014.

After her injury, the National Press Club gave her its John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award in August 2020. In June 2024 she said publicly that she had entered hospice care, attributing her condition to a traumatic brain injury from the 2020 shooting.

The lawsuit and the $600,000 settlement

In June 2020 Tirado sued the City of Minneapolis and its police, arguing that officers had violated her rights as a journalist. At the time several agencies were on the streets, including the Minnesota State Patrol, the National Guard and officers from neighbouring departments, which made it harder to say immediately who had fired a given round.

On 26 May 2022, the Minneapolis City Council approved a $600,000 settlement with her. Tirado announced she would give $120,000 of it to people and community groups in Minneapolis. A settlement is not a court finding of guilt, but it ended the case without a trial.

She was far from the only journalist hit

Across the country, reporters described being fired on, gassed or arrested even after identifying themselves. In Louisville, a WAVE 3 News crew was hit by pepper balls live on air; viewers heard the reporter cry out that she was being shot, and the anchor asked who the officers were aiming at.

Molly Hennessy-Fisk of the Los Angeles Times said she was hit by rubber bullets and tear gas in Minneapolis. A CBS News crew led by correspondent Michael George said they came under fire without any warning or order to move, even though Minnesota's governor had exempted the media from the curfew.

Star Tribune reporter Chris Serres described being ordered to the ground at gunpoint twice by Minneapolis police after being hit by a rubber round, despite waving his press badge.

Tom Aviles, a photographer for the CBS station in Minneapolis, was struck by a rubber bullet and then arrested while covering the protests.

The most widely watched case came on the morning of 29 May, when Minnesota State Patrol officers arrested CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his crew during a live broadcast near the Third Precinct. They were released about an hour later after Governor Tim Walz intervened. Walz later apologised publicly, calling the treatment of journalists who were "inadvertently but nevertheless detained" unacceptable.

(The Facebook video originally embedded here is no longer available.)

In Minneapolis alone, the Press Freedom Tracker counted at least 65 assaults and 20 arrests or detentions of journalists by law enforcement during 2020.

What journalists and protesters saw that week

The posts below, shared by reporters in the first days of June 2020, give a sense of how tense the week became. Some journalists turned to oversized press badges, like the one from the Overseas Press Club that Azmat Khan had used in war zones and then wore in Brooklyn.

In Minneapolis, a week after Floyd's death, protesters returned to the spot where he died and repeated his words.

In Washington, D.C., military helicopters flew low over demonstrators in a "show of force", and police and troops used tear gas and other munitions to clear Lafayette Square shortly before President Trump walked to St. John's Church for a photo.

In Louisville, the mayor said the body cameras of officers involved in the shooting that killed restaurant owner David McAtee had not been switched on, and the police chief was dismissed.

Other clips showed confrontations elsewhere, including an earlier Sacramento County incident that is no longer available, a news team attacked in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, and reporters targeted by police in Detroit.

.@sacsheriff are investigating a video that has generated a lot of attention showing a man being kicked by a deputy even after he has his hands behind his head.https://t.co/SI5ikZJpL0 pic.twitter.com/MgoXrKaiXH

— ABC10 (@ABC10) March 19, 2020

(This post is no longer available on X.)

Why "less-lethal" rounds can still blind and kill

Rubber bullets, foam rounds, sponge rounds and pepper balls are often called "less-lethal" or "non-lethal". The terms are misleading. These projectiles are designed to cause pain, but at short range or when they strike the head they can fracture bones, rupture eyes and cause brain injuries. A 2017 review of published injury reports in BMJ Open found that a significant share of people hit suffer serious or permanent injuries, and eye injuries are among the most common.

That is why many police guidelines say these rounds should be aimed at the lower body and never at the head or face, and why firing them into crowds is so widely criticised. Tirado's injury, and the number of journalists hit in the same days, became part of a wider legal and public debate over how police may use them against the press.

Practical advice for people covering protests

  • Wear impact-rated eye protection and secure it with a strap, so it is not easily lost while moving away from gas.
  • Make your press role visible from several angles, but do not assume a badge will protect you.
  • Work with a partner who can watch your back while you shoot and get you to help quickly.
  • Know your exits and note where police lines and crowd movements are heading before you start working.
  • Document everything, including the time and location of any incident, to support later complaints or legal action.

A free press depends on people being able to record what happens on the streets, especially when the authorities are part of the story. The week Linda Tirado lost her eye showed how fragile that can be.

Sources: Linda Tirado (Wikipedia); U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: George Floyd protests; George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul (Wikipedia); original reporting by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and CNN.

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