‘My Life Will Never be the Same’: Woman Says LBPD Officer Shot Off Part of Her Finger with ‘Less-Lethal’ Round

A woman said she is struggling with her mental health and can no longer work after one of her fingers was partially amputated as a result of being shot with a “less-lethal” projectile by Long Beach police officers during an anti-police brutality uprising on May 31.

“My life will never be the same,” Marisa Baltazar said, holding back tears during a press conference outside of her attorney’s office in East LA on Monday. “I’m not able to do basic things, help myself, cook, shower, help my daughter. I’m mentally not okay. I know I’m going to need a lot of help.”

Baltazar, who works as a hotel housekeeper, wore a white bandage on her right middle finger as she spoke.

Last week, she filed a legal claim against the LBPD seeking damages in excess of $10,000. If the claim is rejected, Baltazar can take the city to court..

The uprising, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, attracted thousands to downtown. Baltazar says an officer shot her without warning while she was in a crowd of demonstrators gathered in the intersection of Broadway and Pine Avenue at about 7:30 p.m. Her attorneys said she was holding her cellphone at eye-level and recording video when she was struck by a projectile fired by an officer.

A fellow protester, Alyssa Bishop, who says she was about 8 feet from Baltazar when it happened, described the crowd as largely peaceful.

“We were boxed in (by police),” she said. “Occasionally there would be a water bottle thrown or something like that but the whole group of us that were protesting would turn around and say, ‘Stop that. Don’t do that.’ We were crowd controlling, but the police kept shooting.”

Videographer Scott Barker, who was also nearby, said he believes police were trying to hit people in the back of the crowd who were being unruly. He says it was during one of those volleys that Baltazar was hit.

His camera captured the immediate aftermath. When he pans over to Baltazar, she is hunched over and clutching her bleeding finger as others come to her aid and reproach police standing at the northern end of the intersection in a skirmish line.

“While on the ground in pain, she receives no help from the Long Beach Police Department, even though she is clearly bleeding,” said Antonio Gallo, one of the attorneys representing Baltazar.

Barker’s video shows blood staining the ground from Baltazar’s finger as officers are heard continuing to shoot projectiles into the crowd. Protesters are seen shielding themselves with their arms as they scream at officers to stop.

“A medic did eventually get to her and under a hail of more bullets being fired, and some individuals using their bodies to protect her, she was escorted away,” said Barker.

Baltazar was hospitalized and ultimately lost part of a finger, her attorneys said.

“Ms. Baltazar that day did not provoke anyone, did not agitate anyone, and was simply there exercising her constitutional right to peaceful assembly,” said another of her attorneys, Salomon Zavala.

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He said in shooting Baltazar, police violated their own departmental policies on less-lethal munitions, which instruct officers to only target people who are engaging in aggressive or combative behavior, and to aim only at the arms below the elbows, stomach, and legs.

“Officers in this case, however, either targeted Ms. Baltazar’s face or they fired indiscriminately into the crowds, both clear violations of their own departmental policies,” said Zavala. “It is indicative … of a police culture that encourages excessive force.”

Speaking before the City Council earlier this month, Police Chief Robert Luna said officers used less-lethal projectiles against people who were throwing bottles, fireworks, and other items at police.

“Those launchers are target-specific⁠—at only individuals who are attacking the officers,” he said.

Police say the crowd size that day grew quickly and unexpectedly from an initial estimate of 200 to over 3,000—later revised to over 5,000. Luna said officers were overwhelmed, with the department receiving nearly four times the average number of calls for service.

The police response has been criticized by both protesters and business owners, who say officers used heavy-handed tactics against peaceful crowds, but stood idle as looters raided businesses. By nightfall, city officials announced that they had called in the National Guard.

Last week, the LBPD released data showing about two-and-a-half times more people were arrested—and later released with a citation—for allegedly violating curfew during this period of civil unrest than those arrested on suspicion of burglary, looting, and other crimes.

Although often misidentified as rubber bullets, what Long Beach police shot at protesters were actually eXact iMpact 40-mm Sponge Rounds. These high-speed projectiles have a “plastic body and sponge nose,” according to the manufacturer’s website. 

Despite their Nerf gun-like name, sponge rounds can cause serious damage. They are part of a family of munitions known as kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), which also includes rubber bullets and bean bag rounds.

Public health researchers have said that KIPs should not be used for crowd control because their potential to kill, maim, or blind is too high.

Baltazar’s attorneys called for the officer who shot their client to be arrested and charged with assault if an investigation finds the officer acted inappropriately. They also called on law enforcement agencies in LA County to end the use of KIPs against protesters.

“What happened to Marisa is connected to what happened to Andres Guardado just a couple of days ago, to Daniel Hernandez in April, to George Floyd, Rashad Brooks. It’s connected because it comes from the same mind frame of ‘us versus them’ that exists in many police departments throughout LA county,” said Pascual Torres, another of Baltazar’s attorneys.

Earlier this month, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles also called for law enforcement to stop the use of KIPs. The group filed a class action lawsuit alleging Los Angeles police officers used excessive force against peaceful protesters, including less-lethal projectiles.  

Also this month, a group of state lawmakers promised to introduce legislation to tighten regulations on how law enforcement agencies use less-lethal munitions.

“No one who is simply exercising their right to protest should face possible injury or death because officers are indiscriminately firing rubber bullets into a crowd,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) in a statement. “Breaking a city-imposed curfew is not a sufficient basis for use of rubber bullets.”