A 23-year-old man accused Los Angeles police of blinding him at a protest earlier this year when an officer allegedly shot him in the face with a less-lethal weapon, according to a legal claim filed Thursday.
Jesus Javier Islas said he was at a demonstration against immigration enforcement near the Metropolitan Detention Center on Jan. 31 in downtown L.A. when he was shot in the face with a projectile that stained his face and clothes with bright green paint.
Video of the incident shows Islas leaning on a scooter in the middle of Alameda Street when the impact happens. An explosion of green paint can be seen as Islas stumbles and screams in pain. The footage does not appear to show any confrontations between police and protesters happening nearby at the time he was hit.
Hours later, doctors at L.A. County-USC Medical Center told Islas he would never see out of his right eye again, according to Islas and his attorney, Jamal Tooson. Police did not attempt to render aid at the scene, Tooson said.
“My client was doing nothing wrong. He was posing zero threat to anyone. And in a moment, LAPD has shattered his life,” said Tooson, whose claim demands $100 million in damages.
The footage does not capture an officer firing a weapon and the claim does not identify the officer responsible. Tooson said he has a “strong belief” that Los Angeles police shot his client based on the results of his own investigation, and noted the LAPD’s practice of using a weapon that can mark protesters with paint for future arrests.
Jesus Javier Islas filed a legal claim stating he was hit in the face with a less-lethal munition and splattered with green paint at a downtown Los Angeles protest.
(Jesus Islas Gomez)
An LAPD spokesman said he could not comment on pending litigation.
The department acknowledged in a document published to its website on Thursday that officers used foam baton rounds and a weapon known as the FN 303 against protesters near the detention center that night. Officers fired nearly three dozen of those rounds, according to the report. Police claimed protesters threw rocks and fireworks while committing acts of vandalism, according to the report.
The FN 303 does have the ability to shoot rounds that stain protesters with paint in order to highlight them for arrest.
The incident happened around 9:40 p.m. and was part of a broader string of protests that happened across the city and nationwide after ICE agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis nurse who was protesting the Trump administration’s aggressive raids in his city.
Islas, who said he has been diagnosed with autism, maintained he wasn’t doing anything combative that night. He told The Times he came to the protest after work, was there for less than 10 minutes and had only stopped by to see a friend when he was shot.
Formerly an avid cyclist, Islas said the incident has irrevocably changed his life. He’s been unable to work or engage in hobbies that he previously enjoyed, and doctors are worried that complications could also impact the vision in his other eye.
“I really started despising law enforcement after that,” he said during an interview. “I was like, these … cowards, they took my eye.”
The LAPD’s crowd-control tactics have been under scrutiny for decades, and the subject of withering criticism since the Trump administration began aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles last summer. Officers were filmed last year trampling demonstrators on horseback and aiming so-called less-lethal launchers at the heads of protesters, a violation of department policy.
Jesus Javier Gomez Islas has filed a legal claim demanding $100 million, alleging the LAPD was responsible for firing the less-lethal munition that hit him in the face at a protest in January.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
Two weeks before Islas was shot, a federal judge barred the LAPD from using its preferred crowd-control weapon, a 40mm beanbag round launcher. The judge ruled officers have repeatedly violated previous court orders that only allow the weapon to be used to subdue protesters who pose a threat of violence.
Since that ruling, the department has made broader use of the FN 303, a compressed air rifle that is designed to “incapacitate and deter people by delivering blunt force trauma through an impact,” according to Peter Bibring, a civil rights lawyer who has sued the LAPD over its crowd-control tactics multiple times.
Bibring reviewed footage related to Islas’ shooting and could not definitively say if the round that struck him came from an FN 303. He noted the amount of paint splatter on Islas was uncommon for the weapon’s marking cartridges.
Regardless of what kind of weapon was used, Bibring said firing any weapon at a demonstrator’s head qualifies as a use of lethal force, and nothing in the video shows Islas, or anyone else, acting threatening.
“Part of the problem is when the department gives officers a weapon and tells them this is less lethal, that it’s safer than a gun, they use them in situations where they would never dream of using a gun,” Bibring said.
The incident marks at least the third time this year that anti-ICE demonstrators suffered partial or complete blindness after police used force against them. Two protesters in Santa Ana lost vision in mid-January after violent encounters with U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents.
“Unjustifiable. Injustice. I don’t think any of those are strong enough words,” Tooson said. “To use this level of force, when they’ve already been sued for this in the past, it’s just insane.”
