'Misuse' of crowd control weapons on ICE protesters led to blindings and traumatic brain injuries, report finds
Source: The Guardian
Tue 14 Jul 2026 07.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 14 Jul 2026 07.01 EDT
It’s been a brutal tactic deployed by local and federal law enforcement officials time and again over the past year: using teargas, rubber bullets and pepper spray to control protests outside ICE detention centers or during enforcement operations.
Now, a new report lays bare the scale of the use of these crowd control weapons during anti-immigration demonstrations across the US, including hundreds of incidents that resulted in lasting and traumatic injuries.
The report and an interactive map was created by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley (HRC) and released this week. Doctors and human rights experts with PHR and HRC documented 412 verified incidents of the “misuse” of these crowd control weapons, also known as “less-lethal weapons”, from June 2025 through May 2026.
“This is a concerning story,” said Dr Rohini Haar, the lead author of the report and a PHR medical expert, in an interview with the Guardian. The report documented 203 injuries stemming from the alleged misuse of the crowd control weapons. Some of the injuries included blindings, traumatic brain injuries, lacerations, fractures and contusions.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/14/misuse-crowd-control-weapons-ice-protesters-blindings-traumatic-brain-injuries-report
Link to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Human Rights Center REPORT - Charting the Crackdown
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