Anti-Trump protester reveals horrific facial injury he sustained during LA demonstrations
An anti-Trump protestor fears he will be left partially blind after he was shot in the eye by Los Angeles police during a rally.
Marshall Woodruff was hit by a rubber bullet fired by cops as he attended a 'No Kings' demonstration in the California city on Saturday.
Woodruff was among thousands of protesters who filled the streets to demonstrate against Donald Trump in an event timed to coincide with the president's military parade.
He said the rally began peacefully, but descended into chaos in the afternoon when bricks and bottles were thrown at officers, which sparked a furious response from law enforcement.
'They just started opening fire on us, just spraying an obscene amount of rubber bullets just everywhere,' Woodruff told ABC7.
He said one of the rubber bullets fractured his cheek and 'tore part of my eye open', with images from the protest showing blood seeping down his cheek.
'I had to go into surgery for about four hours or five hours to get it repaired that night,' he said. 'It's questionable how much vision I'm going to be able to get back or how much I'm going to be able to see out of my right eye.
'Right now, it's just a giant question mark.'
Woodruff said he was left stunned by the impact of the rubber bullet, but was helped to safety by another protestor who took him to authorities as the rally turned violent.
LAPD officers raced Woodruff to an ambulance that took him to a hospital, where paramedics worked on the protestor for hours in hopes of saving his vision.
According to police, the demonstration turned ugly when protesters threw bricks at officers and assaulted horse-mounted cops.
The scenes led the LAPD to declare an unlawful assembly and break up the protest, but not before several officers were injured.
But Woodruff's friends who set up a GoFundMe for him, Jazz Edgar and Gavin Prophet, told ABC7 that the rally escalated into violence when police moved in.
'I think everyone that's out there was peacefully protesting. And I know that there's bad apples in any situations, but I don't think the force that was used to repel the peaceful protesting was justified at all,' Prophet said.
'America is being divided right now, and I believe we have to stand together, no matter what side you are on,' Eggar added.
'We have to support one another regardless of ethnicity, race, or political affiliation, because love is the only way.'
Disputes over the violence at Saturday's No Kings rallies across the country were ignited when embattled LA Mayor Karen Bass said they were 'peaceful', despite dozens of injuries nationwide.
Rowdy scenes were captured across big cities across America, including Portland, Salt Lake City, New York, Denver and Los Angeles as 2,000 protests took over with more than five million in attendance nationwide.
One 39-year-old man was also shot during the protests in Salt Lake City, Utah, and died from his injuries in hospital on Sunday, police confirmed.
The protests fell on the same day as the assassinations of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, with the suspect in the slayings found to have 'No Kings' flyers in his car.
There were a total of 15 separate 'No Kings' demonstrations across LA Saturday - and Bass said she had the luxury of riding in a helicopter to hover over each location.
'Sometimes people who aren't even a part of the main protest hang around, and then that's when you can have trouble,' the Democrat told KTLA5.
'I think that is happening off and on right now, but I do think at the end of the day, this will have been a successful, peaceful day.
'Every single one was peaceful … the Downtown one, which was a massive protest, was still overwhelmingly peaceful. I think oftentimes when you have a crowd this large, at the end, it becomes a little more difficult,' she added.
Bass was berated on social media after saying that the protests in her city were peaceful, while also being slammed for her narrow-minded approach when so many other cities across the country were experiencing civil unrest on Saturday.
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