In late March, 18-year-old Tucker Collins was on his way to completing his first year of college at the University of Southern California (USC), unaware of the life-altering events that were to come.
Collins chose the school to pursue astronautical engineering and cinema. Growing up, he found his passion for rockets through a rocketry simulator video game and tried his hand at photography and making short films. When he received a new Sony FX30 camera for Christmas, he was beyond excited to develop his skills.
He first tried using the camera during the “National Shutdown” protests that took place in late January. He went out with the intention of documenting these protests, hoping to capture a moment of significance.
When he heard about the No Kings Day protest on March 28, Collins was eager to seize the opportunity to document some more of the demonstrations against government overreach. So he called up a friend, and together, they took the Metro light rail to City Hall.
“I was there to document any potential, like, excessive use of force,” he says in an interview with L.A. TACO.
He didn’t expect that he would be a victim of excessive force himself.
After protesters marched through the streets of Downtown, many made their way over to the Metropolitan Detention Center to continue protesting. Collins followed, camera in hand.
At around 4 p.m. on Alameda Street, protesters shouted at agents and kicked a metal fence that was lining a driveway leading to the detention center. Over a loudspeaker, agents gave multiple audible warnings, ordering protesters not to obstruct entrances or interfere with federal law enforcement activities.
As tensions grew, protesters began throwing bottles and small pieces of a concrete barrier that had been broken up at the feds. Agents initially responded by shooting pepperballs at the crowd and later, by throwing tear gas canisters.
In a written statement, a DHS spokesperson tells L.A. TACO that seven warnings had been given before “crowd control measures” were deployed.
“The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly – not rioting,” the spokesperson says. “DHS is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters. Our law enforcement has followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property.”
The spokesperson describes the group that gathered outside the detention center as “1,000 rioters,” and says that they threw “rocks, bottles, and cement blocks at officers.”
At least one person was arrested for allegedly throwing concrete at a CBP agent, according to the spokesperson. That individual was also a person of interest for breaking a Federal Protective Service (FPS) officer’s wrist, the spokesperson alleges.
One person was arrested for “throwing objects at federal property, disorderly conduct, and wearing a mask to conceal identity.” A third person, who allegedly “assaulted a Los Angeles Police Department officer with a deadly weapon,” was also wanted for “destruction of federal property.”
After agents deployed “tear gas,” Collins felt a burning sensation in his throat. Then someone gave him lemon juice to help with the stinging.
“As I remember, there was a group of people who were at the fence,” he says. “I vaguely recall, maybe the line of officers getting a little closer, and then the next thing I know, I can't see. I'm writhing and screaming on the ground in agony.”
Video shared online by Collins’ attorney, James DeSimone, shows officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deploying chemical munitions and then moments later, Collins being shot with a “less-lethal” round in his right eye.
Collins did not hear any dispersal order or warnings before he was shot, he says. Based on video footage that he saw posted online, he believes that dispersal orders were issued after he was shot.
Based on the timestamp of a video depicting the moment when Collins was hit, it appears that Collins was shot before protesters carried the cement barrier into Alameda Street, broke it into small pieces, and began hurling those pieces at agents.
“I'd kind of understood what had happened right away,” Collins says. “At the same time, it still didn't fully click because it just had happened to me. And it was incredibly terrifying in those minutes afterwards, because I can't see out of my right eye.”
After being shot, Collins sat on the ground and felt the familiar burning sensation of tear gas creeping into his throat. Eventually, he was moved into a car and transported to a local hospital. The pain in his right eye was so great that he couldn’t open his left eye, so he was essentially blind for the entire car ride to get emergency treatment. His wound kept bleeding and his nausea intensified.
When he was told that the hospital didn’t have a trauma center to treat him, he was taken to another location where he received a CT scan and was told that his eye would have to be fully removed.
“It was kind of surreal,” he says. “I didn’t know how to react.”
After the surgery was performed a day later, Collins still had vomit and blood matted in his hair.
Despite his parents’ wishes to pull him out of school, Collins wants to stay and finish the semester and continue his daily life as a student in order to “return to a sense of normalcy.”
Collins’ mother, Joann Collins, told L.A. TACO that this whole experience has forced her son to “grow up very, very fast in the span of two weeks.”
Because he’s a legal adult now, he’s been responsible for making doctors' appointments, and talking to lawyers and his professors.
She said she is proud of how her son handled himself and how he’s remained “calm and resilient” despite the gravity of the situation.
As a part of USC’s Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, an undergraduate student group that engineers rockets, he witnessed the launch of their first rocket to go to space from Black Rock City, Nevada, in mid-April. It was a project he and the team had dedicated many hours to, and he didn’t want to miss it.
However, it’s small things, like noticing his nose in his vision, or misjudging the distance of objects, that serve as reminders that he’s not getting his vision back.
“I don't know if I'll ever be the same as I was before,” he says.
Still, Collins persists. In an effort to move forward, he plans to continue publicly sharing his story because he knows he’s not alone in feeling the pain and trauma inflicted by the counter-protest tactics of the DHS, no matter how daunting the issue may feel to him.
“It's no secret that certainly DHS is trending in a more authoritarian direction. And I think we have to do everything we can to stop that,” he says. “The fact that I have a story to tell encourages me to keep telling it.”
He also plans to continue documenting protests to hold DHS officers accountable with the hopes of preventing further injuries caused by their excessive force.
“I don't want this to stop me from doing what's right. And I don't want it to stop me from living my life. And I think in the future, I can hopefully do both of those things,” he says. “DHS shoots people with cameras for a reason, and I don't intend to give in.”
Editor’s note: L.A. TACO’s Head of Investigations, Lexis-Olivier Ray, is a plaintiff in an ongoing federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.
