Two Portlanders hospitalized after shot with munitions: ‘If that round had hit me in the neck, I definitely would have died,'
Andre Miller and Danielle Anderson’s five-year-old son sobbed and backed away from his father when he returned home from the hospital Wednesday morning.
“He kept looking at his dad and just crying and backing up,” said Anderson, 35. “He was scared, and he didn’t know what was going on. He saw the blood all over his dad’s face and was confused.”
Miller, 36, has attended protests against racism and police brutality in Portland since they began 61 days ago after Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd. Known to friends and family as “Dre,” Miller has been involved in activism and volunteer work in Portland for years. Miller is known for putting himself in harm’s way to help and protect people at protests, said Anderson, Miller’s fiancee.
“The care that he shows everyone and the respect that everybody shows him is just astronomical,” Anderson said. “It’s just amazing and a beautiful sight to see.”
Use of force by local police in response to the protests has been of much concern, even resulting in temporary restraining orders. However, many have noted an escalation in police violence since federal officers became more prominent at protests in recent weeks.
Not long after midnight Wednesday morning, federal officers fired a riot munition striking Miller in his head as he filmed the officers and backpedaled away from them.
Miller, who is African American, was one of at least two people confirmed to have suffered serious injuries at the hands of federal officers at the protest beginning Tuesday night and lasting into Wednesday morning. James McNulty, a white 42-year-old Portland man, said he too was hospitalized after being hit with multiple less-lethal munitions. Portland police said they had no presence at the protests that night.
Miller and Anderson have four children together. She said she was with him when he was shot.
“He thought he was losing his life,” Anderson said. “He was saying his last words because he really thought that this was it.”
Andre Miller was struck with a riot munition by federal officers just after midnight Wednesday morning. Miller was wearing a helmet but still sustained a serious injury and was hospitalized.
Anderson, a clinical staff supervisor who has worked in the medical field for 18 years, was the first to render aid to Miller. He lost consciousness multiple times on the way to meet the ambulance, which Miller had to ride in alone because of the coronavirus.
Anderson said the whole experience was devastating.
He was wearing a helmet when he was hit, but the munition hit just below the coverage of his helmet.
Anderson said Miller’s CT scan lit up with metal shrapnel in his head.
“We couldn’t really see what was going on,” Anderson said about watching video footage to find out what kind of munition Miller was hit with. “You can see the other munitions flying everywhere. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint or narrow down what actually stuck him.”
Miller is in a lot of pain while recovering at home but did not experience internal bleeding or bone damage and is expected to make a full recovery physically. Anderson said he has suffered significant emotional trauma as a result of the incident.
Anderson said Miller was not yet up for interviews about the incident.
“He absolutely cannot bring himself to watch any of the videos,” Anderson said. “The minute he hears his video … he can’t. It makes him sick to his stomach. It brings up a flashback of what happened that night. He can’t watch it. He can’t talk about it at all.”
An online fundraiser set up to cover Miller’s medical bills raised more than $12,000 in four days.
Less than two hours before Miller was hit, McNulty felt the impact of shots through his entire body when he was hit.
Adrenaline coursing through his veins, McNulty was unsure of how seriously he was injured.
James McNulty sits at his home in Lents, Portland on July 24, 2020. McNulty was attending a protest on July 21 when he was shot by an impact munition at least 3 times by Federal officers outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse. It was his first time attending a Black Lives Matter protest — he had been watching from home and said he "felt ashamed," that he hadn't been, "so I packed my bag and got ready." Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
“It was like I had just gotten tackled,” McNulty said about getting hit with what he believes were 40 millimeter riot munitions.
McNulty could see he had been hit on his right side but the medic who eventually tended to him told him to put pressure on a spot just to the right of his spine. McNulty thought the medic was possibly overreacting in the moment because he couldn’t see the injury. The medic helped him arrange a ride to the hospital.
It was only once he reached the emergency room at OHSU Hospital he found out one of the rounds had pierced through skin, fat and a layer of muscle before hitting a second layer of muscle on the right side of his lower back. McNulty said the doctor ordered a consult with a trauma surgeon because the wound was so deep, the doctor was concerned it had punctured his abdominal cavity. It had not. McNulty was released from the hospital Wednesday morning.
The clothes James McNulty was wearing when he was shot by impact munitions. The shots went through two t-shirts into his back.Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
McNulty, an educational department manager who works for OHSU, is recovering at home and reflecting on what happened.
He said the munition was just inches away from causing a much more serious injury. He believes he was hit with the same kind of round Donovan La Bella was shot in the face with July 11.
La Bella, whose hands were above his head holding a stereo when he was shot, suffered a cranial fracture and needed multiple surgeries.
“If that had hit me a few inches over, it could have hit me in spine,” McNulty said. “If that round had hit me in the neck, I definitely would have died downtown.”
McNulty estimates he was 10 to 15 yards from federal officers when they fired on him. He was moving north on Southwest Third Avenue in front of a phalanx of federal officers spread across Madison Street. The officers set off several tear gas canisters in the group’s path as they tried to escape the growing plume of chemical irritant. McNulty tried to move a canister out of the way.
James McNulty shows the bandages covering his wounds and bruises surrounding the area where he was shot. McNulty was attending a protest on July 21 when he was shot by an impact munition at least 3 times by Federal officers outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse. It was his first time attending a Black Lives Matter protest Ñ he had been watching from home and said he "felt ashamed," that he hadn't been, "so I packed my bag and got ready." He had been standing on the street when officers began firing. He was running away from the courthouse when he was shot from behind. Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
McNulty said he was almost completely past the line of officers when he was shot.
It was his first night attending a protest in Portland. He said after he saw the moms attending, many of whom he recognized from the community, and the subsequent call for dads, he felt too ashamed not to show up the next night.
James McNulty shows photos of the wounds that he sustained while attending a protest on July 21, when he was shot by an impact munition at least 3 times by Federal officers outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse. It was his first time attending a Black Lives Matter protest — he had been watching from home and said he "felt ashamed," that he hadn't been, "so I packed my bag and got ready." He had been standing on the street when officers began firing. He was running away from the courthouse when he was shot from behind. Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
“I’m a dad,” McNulty said, adding his two young children are the most important thing in the world to him. “We owe it to our children to give them a better world.”
As a white cisgender man, McNulty said he felt obligated to use his privilege to help amplify Black voices at the protests during what he described as a “constitutional crisis.” McNulty said he felt fortunate he was hit by those munitions instead of someone else.
“I have health care coverage,” McNulty said. “I still have my job through COVID. I know how to navigate and access the health care in the U.S.”
However, McNulty was still unsure how he would explain to his kids why he was injured and couldn’t play with them as usual. He said the fact that many Black and brown families have had to have a more grim conversation was not lost on him. He noted he could never understand what it’s like to be Black in America.
“I went to the same high school as Philando Castile,” McNulty said of Castile, a Black man killed by a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer in 2016 just outside of the Twin Cities. McNulty was a few grades above Castile.
McNulty said he is worried the escalation from federal officers, which he described as a “domestic paramilitary,” will result in someone being killed.
However, the experience left McNulty enraged and even more motivated.
