This story is published in partnership with the Human Rights Center at the University of California Berkeley.
asserted
story → publish → California
On the evening of March 28, 2026, USC freshman Tucker Collins was attending a No Kings protest outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles when he suddenly collapsed, screaming and clutching his right eye.
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he → attend → eye
Initially, amidst the drums, shouts, and flags, only a few people noticed the young man with long blond hair go down, but as he was pulled to the curb by on-scene independent field medics, it quickly became clear that something was very wrong: he had been shot in the face by an officer monitoring the protests, and his eyeball was completely ruptured.
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eyeball → notice → protests
At the hospital, doctors removed jagged plastic fragments and metal shards from Collins’ eye socket.
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doctors → remove → socket
“When eventually we got to the hospital, and they told me, ‘We’re gonna have to remove your eye,’ I didn’t really know how to process it,” recalled Collins, an aspiring filmmaker.
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Collins → get → it
“I understood intimately that this is something that could happen.
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that → understand → ?
This is why I was there—to document these sorts of things happening.”
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I → document → things
He would never see out of that eye again.
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He → see → eye
Video of the incident quickly circulated online, and one theory was that Collins had been blinded by a PepperBall round, fired from somewhere in the MDC.
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Collins → circulate → MDC
This turned out to be incorrect.
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This → turn → ?
The plastic fragments and small metal pellets doctors removed were actually fired from a lesser-known and more powerful weapon, the Fabrique Nationale 303 Less Lethal Launcher, or FN303.
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doctors → remove → weapon
A report produced by the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reveals that the FN303 has been disproportionately responsible for some of the most severe injuries in recent immigration-related protests across the US.
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FN303 → produce → US
The report, titled “Charting the Crackdown,” used open-source methodologies to trace and document misuses of crowd control weapons at immigration related protests from June 2025 through May 2026.
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report → title → May
The researchers catalogued over 400 incidents of misuse, the vast majority of which were committed by Federal agents.
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majority → catalogue → agents
A peculiar pattern was hidden in the data: although the FN303 makes up only 12 of the 412 total cases of misuse (less than three percent) it was responsible for some of the grisliest and most debilitating injuries documented in the study.
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it → hide → study
The report’s lead author, Dr. Rohini Haar, who is an emergency room doctor and an expert on crowd-control weapons, considered the discovery something of a surprise.
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discovery → consider → surprise
“The FN303 is a unique example of something we were not looking for,” she said.
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she → look → something
“To be honest, even I didn’t know what an FN303 was.”
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FN303 → know → ?
The FN303 has caused over half a dozen serious injuries between June 2025 and May 2026.
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FN303 → cause → June
But its history of severe, sometimes deadly injuries spans the launcher’s entire 23- year history.
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history → span → history
When asked about this pattern, FN Herstal declined to offer details saying that “the review of specific incidents is a matter for the agencies concerned and the competent authorities.”
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review → ask → agencies
Federal agencies have invested unprecedented amounts of funds in the FN303 in recent months; the Department of Homeland Security is the largest purchaser of the launcher in the Federal government.
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Department → invest → government
Though it’s unclear how much they paid per unit, local law enforcement records from California show launchers selling for $800 each, and according to government contracts, DHS has bought $2.2 million in weapons and projectiles since 2021 alone.
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DHS → ’ → 2021
The agency’s largest purchase, however, came in September 2025, during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, when they purchased more than $1 million of FN303 launchers and projectiles.
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they → come → launchers
Marketed as highly safe and very accurate, this .68 caliber pneumatic launcher has been used by law enforcement agencies all over the world— from Belgium and Turkey, to Georgia and even Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, whose ministry of defense purchased 2000 launchers in 2009.
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ministry → market → 2009
Though it closely resembles a pepperball or paintball gun, with a plastic body and air tank affixed to the front, it fires a denser and faster-moving projectile that can cause debilitating injuries in crowd control settings.
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that → resemble → settings
In some countries, Belgium and Georgia, for instance, deployments of the launcher have triggered national debates about its use in managing protests.
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deployments → trigger → protests
But in the US, the FN303 has gone largely unnoticed, even as demonstrators continue to be injured.
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demonstrators → go → US
With the Trump administration pouring nearly $70 billion into the Department of Homeland Security through the 2029 fiscal year, the agency made the federal government’s single largest purchase on record of the weapon in September 2025—just as protests peaked across the country.
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protests → pour → country
In 2003, within months of the FN303’s release by Belgian weapons manufacturer FN Herstal, the seriousness of the injuries it inflicts became controversial.
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it → inflict → injuries
On March 29, during protests against the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, Swiss police shot union organizer Denise Chervet in the temple with an FN303.
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police → shoot → FN303
She was hospitalized with metal pellets embedded dangerously close to nerve clusters in her face.
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She → hospitalize → face
Fearing permanent paralysis, her doctors refused to operate.
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doctors → fear → paralysis
Chervet would live with the remnant shards for the rest of her life.
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Chervet → live → life
The incident caused an uproar in Switzerland.
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incident → cause → Switzerland
An investigation conducted by the Council of State of Geneva found that officers had little training on how to safely deploy the FN303 prior to using it, and the cantons of Geneva and Zurich both immediately discontinued its use.
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cantons → conduct → use
A review of Swiss cantonal police agency data reveals that no law enforcement agency in Switzerland that deploys the FN303.
Chervet may have been the first to experience this weapon, but she was far from the last.
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she → reveal → last
A little over a year later, on October 21, 2004, celebrations turned to chaos in Boston after the Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees in the ALCS Championship.
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Sox → turn → Championship
A responding officer, wielding the FN303, shot and killed Victoria Snelgrove, a 21-year-old journalism student.
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officer → respond → Snelgrove
The investigation into Snelgrove’s death found that the department failed to properly train its officers in the safe deployment of the weapon.
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department → find → weapon
…and 178 more, not listed.
The Aporia
