"It Will Take Me Just Under Twenty Five Years to Pay off the First Surgery"
- Journalist Blinded by Cops Speaks Out
"The only reason I'm dealing with this so well is I think poverty and low
wage work is just as brutal and visceral as losing an eye to a police
bullet." - Linda Tirado
by Alan Macleod
June 17th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
Journalist and photographer Linda Tirado was standing near a police line in
Minneapolis May 29, covering the George Floyd protests engulfing the city.
All of a sudden, her face "exploded" in her own words. She had been shot
from close range in the eye, permanently blinding her. Her goggles shattered
and tear gas entered the wound, causing even more pain. The police had shot
her. Protestors pulled her away from her attackers, put her into a vehicle
and drove her to the hospital where they were unable to save her eye, but
were able to give her a $58,000 bill, likely the first of many.
Now, in a wide-ranging interview with writer Luke O'Neil, she spoke out
about the ordeal, brutal policing, and the state of America today.
I'm "Completely F***ed"
Tirado revealed that her first reaction to receiving the enormous bill,
initially slated to be $2,900 per month, was to laugh. Tirado is a freelance
journalist supported by readers via Patreon, not the most lucrative
profession. The hospital finally settled on a $100 monthly payment. "It will
take me just under twenty five years to pay off the first surgery," she
said, adding that she was "completely fucked." "I'm in for $58,000 so far
between two surgeries. And those are just the ones I know about. I've got a
few more surgeries coming up. there's no fuck off way that's going to
happen," she added.
"It sucks to be poor"
Tirado is probably best known as the author of the book Hand To Mouth:
Living in Bootstrap America, an account of the grim reality of how the
nearly half of the Americans who live paycheck to paycheck survive, or "288
pages of It sucks to be poor," in her own words. She was also the author of
a viral article in the Huffington Post that explained to privileged readers
why poor people's decisions are not irrational but make perfect sense given
the dystopian economic realities they live under. Growing up poor herself,
she says, has given her the strength and perspective to cope with the
ordeal. "I think the only reason I'm dealing with this so well is I think
poverty and low wage work is just as brutal and visceral as losing an eye to
a police bullet. It's just that people don't think of it that way because it
happens to more people," she told O'Neil.
She compared what happened to her in Minneapolis to her previous jobs on
farms and in factories. "When that's your job you kind of know that you're
going to be permanently disabled at some point, and it's a crapshoot for how
many good years you're going to get," she said, "I made it to thirty seven
man. I did ok. And how fucking bleak is that?"
Weston David Pagano
@westonpagano
Living in America means calling the police could kill someone and calling an
ambulance could bankrupt someone.
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"A few bad apples" spoil the bunch
As a journalist and photographer, Tirado spent a good deal of time in
Ferguson, Missouri, a city that exploded in anger after the police shooting
of Michael Brown in 2014. Yet nothing she saw there prepared her for the
violence in Minneapolis. "I thought St. Louis cops were going to be the
worst I ever saw. Then I got to Minneapolis and I was like, holy fuck, it's
next level up here," she said, "People had told me you're going to
Minneapolis, be careful, those guys don't fuck around." While many have
tried to downplay the actions of officers like Derek Chauvin, claiming that
they represent merely a few bad apples, Tirado sees it a different way,
noting that the metaphor explicitly states that bad apples spoil the entire
bunch.
She shared her final photos of the fateful night on her Patreon page, taken
right before the incident. They appear to show Minneapolis police officers
pointing weapons directly at her. She told CNN there is no way they "could
have mistaken me with a professional camera for anything but working press."
Tirado is currently suing the City of Minneapolis for damages and injunctive
relief. In her announcement, she acknowledged that, because the taxpayer
will foot the bill for any damages, a substantial portion of anything won
will go towards local community initiatives. Since no other group has been
documented using foam bullets, it is not certain if the police will argue
against their culpability; "It could very well have been us," stated police
spokesperson John Elder, when commenting on the case.
If one good thing has come from the police crackdown, Tirado argues, it is
that an increasing number of Americans have come to see the ugly reality of
life for so many and have turned against the government and the system
itself. She said that for generations raised on Rush Limbaugh, Trump was a
godsend, and his rise deeply troubled her. "I've been using the fascism word
openly since 2015," she said, but now so many more are beginning to realize
the danger she saw five years ago. "The landscape has changed," she
concluded.
