- Following the killing of George Floyd, protests erupted throughout the United States.
- In many areas, law enforcement officers are using extreme measure to control crowds, including the use of rubber bullets.
- Social media has been flooded with images of rubber bullet injuries, many of which have led to serious complications. Doctors explain why rubber bullets can be dangerous.
Following the killing George Floyd, protests erupted throughout the entire country, calling for an end to police brutality and justice for Floyd and other Black Americans, like Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, who have met a similar fate at the hands of racial injustice.
Many protests have drawn thousands in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. With that, law enforcement has taken extreme measures to control crowds, including the use of pepper spray, tear gas, physical force, and even rubber bullets.
Social media has been flooded with images from people experiencing the severity of these tactics firsthand. In particular, shocking photos of rubber bullet injuries have circulated all over Twitter, including large purple bruises, intense swelling, and open gashes covered in blood.
Linda Tirado, a freelance photographer and activist, suffered a rubber bullet injury Friday in Minneapolis, and was left permanently blinded in her left eye. Another teenage girl was reportedly shot in the face with a rubber bullet as she was walking home, leaving her face severely bloodied.
That begs the question: What exactly are rubber bullets made of if they can cause this type of harm? And what does getting hit by one really feel like? Here’s what you need to know about the injuries they can cause, according to doctors.
What are rubber bullets, exactly?
Rubber bullets, a.k.a. kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), are bullets made of plastic, rubber, or other similar materials. According to a 2017 meta-analysis published in the journal BMJ Open, manufacturers create more than 75 different types in various countries—from Brazil to China to the United States. “Despite the widespread use of KIPs and the numerous types available, there is limited regulation of the development of these weapons and limited public information provided by manufacturers on their design and guidelines for use,” the authors write.
“These more serious injuries, particularly those to the head and neck, can result in death.”
The U.S. first started using rubber bullets during Vietnam War protests in the 1960s, according to the nonprofit organization Physicians for Human Rights. Today, law enforcement officials fire rubber bullets to enforce crowd control, with the idea that they will cause less bodily harm than a regular metal bullet.
However, “rubber bullets basically fire out of the weapon pretty much as fast as a bullet,” explains crowd control weapons expert Rohini Haar, M.D., M.P.H., research fellow at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, PHR medical expert, and author of Lethal in Disguise: The Health Impacts of Crowd-Control Weapons. “Because they’re bigger and less dense, they are supposed to slow down a lot faster.”
She explains that rubber bullets are a hard plastic—“not like a Nerf gun.” And once the bullet is fired “it has a very unpredictable trajectory and won’t often go where you think it’s going to go.” That means if you’re shot at a close range “you’re getting shot as hard as a bullet comes out, in most cases,” Dr. Haar says. “It can lead to a lot of injuries you don’t want.”
What does getting hit with a rubber bullet feel like?
Twitter is filled with comments from people who were hit by rubber bullets over the weekend. Here’s how they have described it:
- “It feels like a brick hitting you at 15 mph.”
- “If this is what getting hit by a rubber bullet feels like, I never want to experience the pain of an actual gun.”
- “It’s better than the part of childbirth that happens before the drugs.”
Ashley Larrimore, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, says she has taken care of several patients over the past few days who were hit by rubber bullets. From her experience, people described it as “extremely painful” and that it “feels like being hit by a baseball bat really hard.”
What kind of injuries do rubber bullets cause? Can rubber bullets kill you?
In theory, rubber bullets are supposed to cause less harm than a “regular” bullet. But, in reality, they can do serious damage. The most common injuries are to the skin and extremities, like bruises, cuts, and broken bones, Dr. Larrimore explains.
“When they make contact with a person’s trunk, head, or neck they can cause more serious injuries,” Dr. Larrimore says. That can include the following:
- Bleeding around internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, spleen, and heart
- Abnormal heart rhythms
- Eye injuries, like vision loss due to rupture of the eye, bleeding in the eye, or detachment of the retina
- Fractures of the facial bones or skull
- Bleeding of the brain
“These more serious injuries, particularly those to the head and neck, can result in death,” Dr. Larrimore says. Research backs that up. The 2017 meta-analysis mentioned above examined data from 2,135 rubber bullets injuries and concluded that 71% were severe. Data showed that 53 people died of their injuries, with penetrative injuries making up more than half of those cases and blunt trauma causing 23% of the deaths.
More than 15% of survivors were left with permanent disability, usually due to being shot in the head and neck. Most of the disabilities included blindness, removal of the spleen, and removal of a section of the bowel.
❗If you are a protestor or bystander who gets hit by a rubber bullet and experience heavy bleeding, deep bruising, or other worrisome symptoms, head to the ER immediately.
Bottom line: Rubber bullets are dangerous and can cause serious injuries.
“It is deeply concerning that these are being used. The risk of serious injury and disability is high,” says Dr. Haar. “These weapons are supposed to be used with proportionate force, like when they’re absolutely required, which is not what you see in the protests that are going on now.”
Researchers from the BMJ study came to this conclusion: Rubber bullets “do not appear to be an appropriate means of force in crowd-control settings.” Physicians for Human Rights also opposes their use. “KIPs are not an appropriate weapon to be used for crowd management and specifically for dispersal purposes,” the organization writes online.
“There really is no role for rubber bullets in crowd control,” Dr. Haar says. “They often don’t make the situation any better, and often increase tensions and make things much worse.”
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