Rioter on Lost Eye from Tear Gas Canister: ‘Pales in Comparison to the Hardships African Americans Have Endured’

*UPDATE* 3:54 PM ET: It appears as though the eye in the selfie is not the same injured eye shown in the picture originally posted but it does appear to be the same person. We will keep our eye out for any additional news or updates to this story to clarify exactly what the confusion is there if we can.

*FINAL UPDATE* 4:20 PM ET: It appears the images match up and one is probably a mirror image (reverse) as the injury on the lip is consistent with the side with the injured eye in both images.

Many riots have been taking place over the last few days since the tragic death of George Floyd reportedly by a Minneapolis police officer. Many have taken to the streets to riot and protest in multiple major cities around the nation.

Although many of the protestors appear African American, many white people including reports of Antifa have also joined in with the riots and looting. Although Floyd’s death was indeed tragic and should have never happened, many American’s fail to see how rioting and looting are helping make anything better.

One rioter in Fort Wayne, Indiana according to Twitter posts lost an eye due to an “improperly fired tear gas canister” which the Twitter account claims hit his head. Originally another Twitter user has posted this white man’s photo claiming that he had been hit with a rubber bullet in the eye.

Regardless, if the tweets are accurate and legitimate, this white man lost his eye protesting his perceptions of police injustice towards African Americans, which he has every right to do, peacefully of course. It’s hard to say for sure what led up to him losing an eye, but the odd thing is that according to the commentary, it’s almost as if he’s proud to have lost an eye.

Regardless of which side you stand on, this almost seems a bit out of touch. But the picture was posted with the caption: “fresh out of post op. I might have to have surgery for broken bones in my face within weeks to come but for now all that happened is I did end up losing my eye. This pales in comparison to the hardships aftican [sic] americans have endured for decades. Stand up for what u believe in.”

African Americans have endured some hardships. Many people endure hardships in the year 2020. But the priorities here seem a little strange although that could possibly be left up to interpretation, again, assuming all the tweets below are correctly reporting the information about what happened. The hope is that there are no more lives lost from these riots and that they end as soon as possible, or at least any rational person would think. See tweets:

fresh out of post op. I might have to have surgery for broken bones in my face within weeks to come but for now all that happened is I did end up losing my eye. This pales in comparison to the hardships aftican americans have endured for decades. Stand up for what u believe in. pic.twitter.com/9QK69wIgJQ

— lens (@notbalin) May 31, 2020