SPECIAL REPORT: Protesters injured by police last year are still healing from their wounds — but some never will.
Victims describe the lasting effects of broken bones, torn ligaments, scarred faces, and blindness suffered at the hands of officers. nbcnews.to/3oCTxMQ
Rickia Young was driving to pick up a friend from a protest in Philadelphia in Oct. 2020 when officers broke her windows and dragged her from the car.
Young says she suffered torn ligaments, an injury to her back, and lacerations to her face.
She was never charged with a crime.
“They treated me like an animal,” Young says.
“I can barely play with my son. If I try to run, my back will hurt. I can barely do everyday things. I can’t even hold a baby for a long time because my arm will give out on me.”
22-year-old Dounya Zayer says she suffered four herniated discs, two pinched nerves, a sprained ligament in her back, and a concussion when an NYC officer allegedly shoved her to the pavement during a protest on May 29 in Brooklyn.
“He walked away from it, but he ruined my life”
On June 4, Martin Gugino, who is in his 70s, suffered a fractured skull and concussion after police in Buffalo pushed him to the ground at a demonstration.
A Buffalo grand jury dismissed charges against the officers earlier this year.
Randy Stewart alleged in a damages claim that a Los Angeles police officer shot him in the back of the head with a rubber bullet, causing a brain hemorrhage, tinnitus, speech and vision trouble, and more.
Marqus Martinez is still recovering after being hit with a sting ball grenade in his face on May 31 in California.
His mouth was split up to his nose; he also suffered a broken jaw and concussion, per a lawsuit.
“He’s got years worth of recovery in front of him,” a lawyer says.
30-year-old Shantania Love is permanently blind in one eye because of what she believes was a rubber bullet when police began firing at a Santa Rosa demonstration in May 2020.
Love says she suffers from depression and severe panic attacks as a result of her injury.
It took 23-year-old Abigail Rodas weeks to eat and talk again after a Los Angeles officer allegedly shot her with a rubber bullet last June.
Doctors stitched her mouth back together and inserted a permanent metal plate to repair her fractured jawbone.
@SpotlightPA A Chinese American teenager who was fatally shot by Pennsylvania State Police last year had his hands in the air when troopers opened fire, new videos show, prompting calls for an independent investigation.
@SpotlightPA Christian Hall, who had been diagnosed with depression, was standing on the ledge of an overpass in northeastern PA when troopers arrived.
They tried to persuade him to get down, but when they saw he had a gun — later determined to be a realistic pellet gun — they backed away.
Black culture and influence made 'athleisure' a phenomenon, but only a handful of Black retail owners are benefitting from the trend. #NBCNewsThreads (1/8)
The guest bedroom in Earl West’s home in suburban Atlanta looks more like a sneaker warehouse. From floor to ceiling, covering the entire space, there are nearly 900 pairs of sneakers valued in West’s estimation at more than $100,000. (2/8)
West, a self-described “sneaker head” started collecting in 1982. He is among thousands of people in America, especially Black males, who are fixated on sneakers, so much so that they are the drivers of a market that pulled in $70B in 2020. (3/8)
@hechingerreport By bringing the nation’s classrooms into the public’s homes, the pandemic offered a close-up of the system’s failures.
Yet, thousands of teachers, principals and other school staff have been going to heroic lengths to help students struggling emotionally and academically. (2/10)
At Witch Hazel Elementary, which has a student poverty rate of 95%, adults are proud of how well they’ve survived a difficult year.
“I’m always excited for innovation,” Principal Christy Walters says. “I’m not too tired for that. That is energizing.” (3/10)
Next week, Minneapolis residents will vote on whether to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with an agency that provides a "comprehensive public health approach" to public safety.
The ballot measure says the new department "could include" police officers "if necessary."
According to JaNaé Bates, a spokeswoman for the coalition that petitioned for the initiative, passage would not "abolish" the police or lead to the firings of any officers. (2/6)
Supporters of the proposal say it would bolster public safety to include not just police officers but also mental health and substance abuse experts, violence interrupters and others better suited to handle situations that armed police officers ordinarily face. (3/6)
Pro-China social media accounts are pushing a new thread of propaganda about the origins of the pandemic, claiming that Covid was imported to Wuhan from the U.S. through a batch of Maine lobsters, the University of Oxford found. #NBCNewsThreads (1/6) nbcnews.to/3n9AybO
Marcel Schliebs, a disinformation researcher at the university, uncovered more than 550 Twitter accounts spreading a nearly identical message. Translated into multiple languages, the message was sent at similar times each day between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. China Standard Time. (2/6)
“This is the third or fourth major different redirection Chinese officials have gone in to try and somehow pin the Covid outbreak on the U.S.,” said Bret Schafer, the head of the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy. (3/6)