US Is Terrorizing Its Own Citizens With “Less-Lethal” Weapons, Victim Says |
Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
On March 28, 18-year-old University of Southern California student Tucker Collins documented a protest outside the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center.
“I didn’t even see any of the officers who had their weapons out,” Collins told Truthout. “[I was] standing back from the crowd and, you know, focused on trying to frame up the crowd, and then the next thing I know, I can’t see anything.”
A federal agent shooting from behind a fence struck Collins in his right eye with a .68 caliber FN 303 projectile, destroying Collins’s eyeball and fracturing his orbital bone.
While often mislabeled as common pepper balls, FN 303 projectiles carry more than just the chemical irritants found in typical paintball-style rounds. They have a hard plastic casing and a metal front payload, adding weight and kinetic energy to “temporarily disable” targets with “a sufficiently dissuasive level of pain,” according to their manufacturer.
“Less-lethal” weapons are broadly defined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as weapons or instruments that are “designed or intended to be used in a manner that is not likely to cause death or serious bodily injury.” Such weapons include pepper balls, rubber bullets, tear gas, and more. While many of these weapons have the capacity to kill, they are often referred to as “less-than-lethal,” according to DHS.
Police Use “Less Lethal” Weapons to Crush Social Movements Across the World
Despite their “less-lethal” designation, FN 303 projectiles have proven deadly. A Boston police officer killed Victoria Snelgrove in 2004 by shooting her in the eye with an FN 303 round.
In January 2026, federal agents shot two people in the eye with FN 303 rounds in Santa Ana, California, at least one of which was at point-blank range and reportedly left the individual with a piece of metal near his carotid artery.
In spite of the risks, officers continue to use them.
Under Customs and Border Protection’s 2021 use-of-force policy, firing FN 303 projectiles within 10 feet of a target is only authorized when deadly force is considered “reasonable and necessary,” such as when an individual is determined to pose an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to an officer or another person. The updated overarching policy from DHS also considers “uses of impact weapons to strike the neck or head”........