DHS agents blinded two protesters with crowd-control projectiles at a Santa Ana immigration protest

Hundreds of people marched in Santa Ana, California on the evening of Friday, January 9, 2026, in a protest responding to the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, part of a wave of demonstrations that broke out nationwide. Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who attended, described the gathering as "very peaceful," with many parents pushing strollers. By evening, a smaller group remained outside the federal immigration building, chanting and burning what appeared to be an American flag. A handful of DHS officers in riot gear stood on the building's plaza holding crowd-control gear. Video shows officers move to pull a demonstrator, later identified in a federal complaint as Katelyn Skye Seitz, onto the building's steps; in response, 21-year-old college student Kaden Rummler and a few other demonstrators stepped forward, shouting. An officer fired a crowd-control projectile that struck Rummler in the face from several feet away. Rummler fell to the ground bleeding; an officer dragged him by the shirt into the building, where video later showed him face-down on the ground being handcuffed and cited for disorderly conduct. Local police and media reports found no evidence protesters threw anything at officers besides traffic cones, and video of the confrontation shows nothing thrown at officers before Rummler was shot. Rummler's aunt, Jeri Rees, said he was hospitalized for two days and underwent six hours of surgery; doctors found glass shards and plastic fragments in his skull and a fragment of metal lodged just short of his carotid artery. "I will never see through my left eye again, not even light," Rummler said in a statement read by a fellow protester. "I'm just glad I'm alive to tell my story."

Separately, 31-year-old Britain Rodriguez said he was also struck in the face by a projectile fired by federal agents while standing on the building's steps during the same protest, and said he was likewise left blind in one eye. "I remember hitting the ground and feeling like my eye exploded in my head," Rodriguez told the Los Angeles Times. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin characterized the demonstrators as "a mob" and "violent rioters," saying two officers were injured and that protesters had thrown "rocks, bottles and fireworks"; video of the confrontation showed only an orange traffic cone rolling onto the plaza before officers began firing. DHS did not answer questions about what type of projectiles were used or address either Rummler's or Rodriguez's injuries specifically, though McLaughlin separately dismissed similar injury claims from another protester as "absurd." Two protesters, including Seitz, were arrested and charged with assault on a federal officer and disorderly conduct.