New York state senator Myrie pepper sprayed during protest as police target journalists

As protest marches spread in over 75 US cities following the demise of Minneapolis resident George Floyd while in police custody, some of the demonstrators are counting the cost following the loss of a body part or two.

According to the Twitter post of artist and writer Molly Crabapple, New York State Senator, Zellnor Myrie was handcuffed and pepper sprayed by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers when he joined the protest against police brutality.

Myrie is a member of the Democratic Party and a member of the New York State Senate for District 20, based in Brooklyn.

Guardian photojournalist Linda Tirano covering the #GeorgeFloyd protests, fared far worse when she was deliberately targeted and shot in the eye by U.S. security forces, according to Anonymous, “the decentralized international activist/hacktivist movement widely known for its various cyber-attacks against several governments and corporations.”

Despite the efforts of doctors who performed emergency surgery, they were unable to save Tirano’s eye as she lost her sight. In an update, Linda Tirano revealed she is permanently blind in the left eye.

An Indiana Tech student also lost his eye after getting hit by a gas canister during another protest in Indiana. According to Balin Blake, he was likely going to have a second surgery to fix a broken bone in his skull after his right eye was ruptured.

The 21-year-old college student was standing with dozens of protesters Saturday in Fort Wayne when police in riot gear fired tear gas to disperse the crowd of which one of the gas cans hit him in the face. The city’s police department said the act was not deliberate.

Meanwhile, many journalists across the country are also counting the cost of covering the protest marches, noting despite revealing their identities, police officers are attacking them.