'Chilling the Press Has Consistently Outraged Me'
SEPTEMBER 3, 2021
Linda Tirado's lawsuit against the police who cost her an eye defends all journalists
ARI PAUL
Linda Tirado, a 39-year-old writer and photographer who covers poverty and social justice movements, has been blind in one eye for more than a year. That’s a year with only one eye to use to evaluate her surroundings while covering a protest. That’s a year with only one eye to watch he
Mor 8- and 11-year-old daughters.
Tirado, a former professional chef, has only recently started to use knives again, and she can no longer drive a car. “I don’t run into doorframes as much,” she said.
Her husband is a Marine combat veteran; “he was trained to be the injured one, and I was trained to be the caregiver,” she said. Noting that the roles have been reversed, she added, “I picked the kids’ dad well.”
In fact, Tirado told FAIR in a phone interview, the incident has actually given her a new perspective as a photographer. “Looking through the lens of a camera mimics the vision that I used to have; I have full range,” she said. “The lens is a physically adaptive device.” Seeing how people around her respond to her eyepatch has given her a new insight, she said, into how people view visible disabilities.
‘Serious and troubling’
The last photographs Tirado took with her camera before she was shot in the face with a rubber-jacketed bullet show Minneapolis police aiming at her during the Black Lives Matter protests in response to the killing of George Floyd (CNN, 6/12/20). Her lawsuit argues that her civil rights were violated by the police and city, but if she wins, it has broader implications for journalists in a time of police violence against the press.
More:
https://fair.org/home/chilling-the-press-has-consistently-outraged-me/