CBRN event in United States of America on Sun 12th October 2025

Vincent Hawkins still has the megaphone he was holding when his face was mangled by a tear gas canister. Blood streamed down his face as he clutched his hand over his eye, shuffling in confusion. Moments later – for the first time in his life – the 55-year-old emergency room nurse found himself on the other side. He was the patient.

As waves of federal agents surge to several cities across the US, cracking down on what the Trump administration calls the “worst of the worst” illegal immigrants, a growing number of Americans are taking to the street to express their concerns over what they see as heavy-handed overreach. Those protests reached a fever pitch after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. While tensions flare and protests build, so does widespread concern over what some say is the excessive use of crowd control tactics to quell and disperse demonstrators not just in Minnesota, but in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland as well.

Law enforcement officers are typically trained to use force only when the crowd poses an imminent threat or is interfering with an officer’s official duties, according to CNN’s senior law enforcement analyst, Josh Campbell. Now the practice is drawing heightened scrutiny – particularly surrounding situations with small crowds and in residential neighborhoods. The effects of the crowd control devices commonly used by law enforcement are usually short-lived and temporary, but some can have a lasting, if not permanent, impact.

“I will never see through my left eye again, not even light,” said 21-year-old protester Kaden Rummler, in a statement to the Associated Press. “I’m just glad I’m alive to tell my story.” Rummler was maimed by a projectile fired by a federal officer at a recent protest in Santa Ana, California the AP reported. Video shows him advancing toward agents, falling to the ground after being hit in the face by the object, then bleeding profusely as he is dragged away by an officer.

Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin described the group to CNN as “violent rioters” who were throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at law enforcement. She said two officers were injured in the altercation but declined CNN’s request to comment on the man’s injury. It is unclear whether any objects were thrown at law enforcement and by whom. Rummler is seen holding a megaphone throughout the incident. Federal agents using what are known as “less-lethal” projectiles against unruly crowds is not a new tactic, nor has it always been controversial. What seems different here is how quickly law enforcement is resorting to using them. The Rev. David Black was one of the first faces to be associated with this trend. While praying aloud at a protest in front of the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago last fall, one agent unleashed multiple rounds of pepper balls at Black’s face. Minutes later, he was inundated with pepper spray by a group of officers. Videos of the incident exploded on social media, drawing enough scrutiny that a lawsuit was filed, eventually prompting a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order restricting federal agents in the Chicago area from firing various types of “less-lethal” projectiles and chemical irritants. The order drew nationwide attention to Chicago, where immigration enforcement officers were recorded violating the order several times – including top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino – which then prompted a judge to call an emergency hearing to discuss the violations. President Donald Trump, however, doubled down on his support of the agents’ use of force, saying, “they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.”

Though all officers are trained to consider how such force can impact innocent bystanders, including factoring in whether residents in nearby homes might be impacted, “not all law enforcement agencies provide the same level of training to their personnel,” Campbell said. “While large city police departments routinely provide their officers with robust training in crowd control, federal agencies like ICE, Border Patrol, US Marshals and the FBI typically do not provide their personnel with advanced training, because it is not a key part of their usual mission,” he added. DHS officials did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for clarity on the agency’s use of force policy. Below is a closer look at the types of less-lethal munitions used in these kinds of events, as well as accounts of what it feels like to be hit by one and their lasting physical – and mental – impacts.

Pepper balls and pepper spray

Pepper balls are a projectile fired from weapons that look like paintball guns, but the pellets marry the effects of a chemical irritant with the blunt force of a paintball. Dr. Rohini Haar, a medical adviser for Physicians for Human Rights, explained that the pepper balls “cause a lot of pain from the physical injury, the blunt trauma, and if (the pepper ball) hits the eye or something, you’re really injecting this chemical toxin inside people’s bodies.” The pellets are designed to burst open on impact and release a fine powder containing oleoresin capsicum, an oil-based compound derived from a variety of pepper plants, including cayenne and chili, giving their trademark spiciness. Mason Lake, a photojournalist who has been exposed to various crowd-control tactics while covering protests in Portland, Oregon, said getting hit with pepper balls feels similar to being pelted with paintballs. The key difference, he says, is that pepper balls release an incredibly fine powder that can easily work its way into clothing, where it lingers and causes renewed irritation upon contact with the skin. Even in small towns, police use pepper balls and pepper spray to quell unruly crowds. In Durango, Colorado, a small city in the southwest corner of the state, Ryan Garcia and dozens of other residents responded to the city’s ICE facility to protest an immigration enforcement operation. Tensions rose during this protest, and an officer unloaded several pepper balls all over Garcia’s body. “I felt it in my leg, I felt it at my side. The one that got me was one that hit me in my elbow, and it just resonated up my entire arm. Three of my fingers were numb for, I don’t know how many days after,” Garcia said. When those pepper balls were unleashed, one somehow made its way into Garcia’s backpack. “One of them, like, exploded in my backpack, somehow, I didn’t realize that ‘til afterwards, when I was going through my bag … I opened it up, and then it started choking me out,” Garcia said. Pepper spray works much the same as pepper balls. The spicy OC compound is incorporated into a liquid and manufactured into aerosol spray canisters for deployment. Since DHS began its blitz in Minnesota, Emily Phillips has been a vocal protester of its actions across the state, including a November raid where agents deployed pepper spray. Phillips was standing at the front of the crowd protesting when she was pepper sprayed by an officer from about three feet away. “It affected my eyes, like, it’s oily, so it was coming out of my eyes for a couple days, because it was hard to actually clean all of the oil off, so every once in a while, for a couple days, my eyes would get a little bit spicy,” Phillips said. Phillips’ eyes and body were immediately affected by the pepper spray. “My whole body just burned for several hours. I burned until I went to bed that night. I remember waking up the next morning and (thinking), ‘I’m not on fire anymore.’”

Tear gas

Tear gas, another chemical irritant, is a mainstay for law enforcement seeking to disperse an unruly crowd. The active ingredient in tear gas is actually a powder, according to Haar, who is also an emergency room physician and professor. Tear gas canisters don’t spray liquid but emit smoke-like particles of a chemical compound intended to cause disorientation, sensory irritation and pain. Mindan Ocon lives in an apartment building less than a block away from Portland’s ICE facility, a site of frequent protests, where all kinds of chemical irritants of various colors have been deployed. Though not a protester, she has become all too familiar with the smell, taste and effects of tear gas. Tear gas is an indiscriminate weapon, meaning once it is deployed, it cannot be controlled, and unintended targets may be affected, Haar said. Airborne tear gas can drift, infiltrating residents’ apartments through vents, air conditioning units and windowsills. “I honestly can’t even explain, but there’d be times where I just come in here, and my nose would just start itching, and I was sneezing, and I’m like, it’s not my allergies,” said Ocon. Ocon took her 3-year-old daughter to the hospital last summer after tear gas, in the parking area beneath her apartment, seeped up into her unit, compromising both her and her daughter’s airways. “Just instantly, your eyes and nose are attacked and watering and mucus is flowing,” Lake, the photojournalist explained. “It can affect every body part,” said Haar. “But compounding this is this feeling of panic and suffocation and you can’t see, and sometimes that, by itself, has sort of a mental health impact as well.”

The terror was visceral for Hawkins, the emergency room nurse who became the patient after being struck in the face with a tear gas canister in Portland last June. “When I sat in that gurney in the ER, and I was pretty sure I was gonna lose my eye,” Hawkins said. The impact of the tear gas canister narrowly avoided his eye and struck his eyebrow ridge. Hawkins described the moment as being struck by “a 90 mile per hour fastball pitch from a Major League pitcher without a helmet on.” He retained his eyesight.