Journalist loses her eye in riots

A journalist has been left blind in one eye after being injured by police bullets while covering the protests in Minneapolis.

Linda Tirado, a freelance journalist and photographer, says she was hit in the head by what was believed to be a rubber bullet and has permanently lost the sight in her left eye.

She wrote on Twitter: “I am permanently blind in my left eye, and the docs absolutely refuse to let me go back to work for they say six weeks. I’m definitely not allowed to be near smoke or gas.

“What we think happened is I took a rubber bullet to the face.

“It exploded my eyeball, which has now been patched back together but who knows if it’ll need more surgery.

“My vision is gone no matter what it winds up looking like scar wise.”

She added: “But it wasn’t my photography eye so it’s not career-ending. I can still see flowers and sunsets, just maybe I won’t be able to tell how far away they are.

“So I’m gonna keep reporting from Minneapolis until we figure out how to get me and my car home cause I can’t drive anymore.”

In a separate incident, two cameramen for the news agency Reuters were also hit by rubber bullets on Saturday. Julio Cesar-chavez and Rodney Seward were both injured when they were shot as they took cover in a petrol station during the riots.

Another TV reporter, Kaitlin Rust, a journalist at WAVE 3 in Lousiville, was shot while carrying out a live broadcast in the city on Friday.

In a video uploaded to Twitter, Ms Rust is heard screaming, “I’m getting shot!”

She was asked who they were aiming at. “At us,” Ms Rust said. “Directly at us.”

Rust and photographer James Dobson both suffered minor injuries.

A CNN journalist was also arrested on camera while covering the protests in Minneapolis on Friday.