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Pregnant black woman shot by US police, lost eye

387977_US-police-black-woman-eye-Dornella-Conner

A pregnant black woman has lost her left eye after being shot by a police officer in Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri, her family said on Friday.

Dornella Conner, 24, was shot by a “non-lethal gun” during protests on Tuesday over a grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown, although she was not even protesting.

Apparently, Conner and her friend, De’Angelas Lee, were sitting in their car at a gas station on New Halls Ferry Road in St. Louis, just north of Ferguson.

Once Lee started to drive away, several police officers arrived who were apparently responding to gunshots. While Lee was trying to get away, officers blocked them “from the side, front and back”. That was when an officer shot a “non-lethal beanbag round” which broke through the windshield, shattering glass hitting Conner in the face.

Police, who arrested Lee on charges of second-degree assault on law enforcement, say that the man was driving toward them.

However, the woman’s dad said how come police shot at his girl who was not even driving. “If a vehicle is coming at you, wouldn’t you take aim at the person who is driving the vehicle, not at the passenger’s side?” Donnell Conner asked.

“I’m very upset, very disappointed with tactics that they used trying to get control of situation,” he said. “I understand tough job, I understand that it was chaos, there was no reason to fire upon innocent person sitting in a vehicle.”

Dornella wrote on Facebook on Thanksgiving that she will “have justice for what they did to me but I’m happy I’m alive”.

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