How to protect yourself from rubber bullets—and why these ‘nonlethal’ weapons are so dangerous
“Nonlethal” weapons, like rubber bullets, have been used by police personnel since the 1880s and they are far more dangerous than they may seem. (Pixabay/)Fifteen minutes before curfew at 9 p.m. in Minneapolis, on May 29th, photojournalist Linda Tirado lost her left eye. She doesn’t remember much from the rest of the night, only the feeling of her face exploding and her goggles shattering. “I squeezed my eyes shut and started screaming,” Tirado says.Someone grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the tear gas, saying, “Come with me.” Tirado was herded into an old 1970s-style van, where a street medic bandaged her eye, which had been directly hit by a rubber bullet, shot from the direction of the police. Within an hour of her injury, Tirado’s eye underwent intensive surgery. The impact of the projectile bullet had lacerated her eyebrow and detached her retina, as well as caused serious...